


The Riddle House

by DavinaCFox



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Dark Edward Nygma, Dark Past, Dom/sub Play, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Insanity, Loss of Virginity, Murder, Oral Sex, Orgasm, Secrets, True Love, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:20:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24221971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DavinaCFox/pseuds/DavinaCFox
Summary: After serving a lengthy prison sentence, Oswald Cobblepot was released from jail at the age of forty eight, but an assassination attempt almost took his life. Now, with his chance of reclaiming his role as underworld king destroyed, disabled Oswald lives alone in one of Edward Nygma's fine homes - the Riddle House - while Ed lives at another residence with his wife Lee and their large family. Ed vows to care for Oswald himself – but family commitments make this impossible, and when Ed meets twenty-two year old Polly, he decides to hire her to look after his best friend.But all is not as it seems. For Polly, her role as carer and companion to Oswald soon grows into a much more intimate relationship when it becomes clear Oswald is not as helpless as she was led to believe, as virgin Polly discovers Oswald is a very passionate man. But Polly also learns Oswald still has enemies – and how far she will go to protect him will change her life forever, as dark secrets are revealed from the dim and distant past that will lead to a shocking revelation...
Relationships: Edward Nygma/Leslie Thompkins, Oswald Cobblepot/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Edward Nygma stood on the lawn of the Riddle House as behind him, the large, question mark shaped hedge looked tall and impressive. The gardens were well tended here, and the flowers were colourful in the borders and the roses were in bloom. The house itself was large and well maintained, built a century before and still with original features intact. It wasn't the Van Dahl mansion, but it was just as grand. Everything Oswald had owned had been seized after the war when the authorities had forced him to pay for his crimes after the city fell. Ed still resented that. Post war, life had been kind to him, but for Oswald, it had been the opposite. Ed had turned his life around, grabbing what money they had stashed away and buying up property. He was a wealthy man now, they still jointly owned the Iceberg Lounge, and the authorities couldn't do a thing about it. Ed was careful these days. He had to be, with a wife and family. He had married Lee Thompkins and they now had five children. His eldest kid was seventeen. His youngest was three years old. And it was difficult, with Oswald living alone here at the Riddle House, while he had a family to take care of...

Ed turned away from the wide driveway and looked up at the house, the windows were tall and behind them hung lace nets, the place was as charming as it was grand, of course the wide porch and the front door were in shades of green, and the door knocker was in the shape of a question mark. This house had once been the place where, as Riddler, he held parties and entertained the highest of criminal society – and he missed the old days. But life had moved on...

Ed checked his watch and took a walk to the end of the driveway, waiting for his visitor to arrive. He glanced back at the house again, up to the first floor as his thoughts shifted to Oswald, who was in bed. Ozzie had not been too keen on the idea of hiring more help – not after _last_ time – and if he was honest about it, Ed had not been keen on the idea either. But he couldn't look after Oswald and take care of his own family, his two youngest kids had been unplanned but they were here and they were loved and Lee had given up enough already working part time, then stopping work and giving up her career to raise the kids. She had suffered depression after the youngest had been born, something she hadn't experienced since the birth of their third child. Ed had wanted to do all he could to help, whilst reminding himself maybe they wouldn't have all these kids if he had been more responsible and taken his meds on time and Riddler had not been such a horny bastard...

Ed also often reminded himself he was lucky that his wife loved him and that they made such a great team raising their family together. It could have ended differently. He could have been give a lengthy sentence after the war, not to Blackgate, but to Arkham. But instead, the authorities had gone for Oswald... At least they both had the consolation of knowing not _every_ crime and theft had been uncovered. Thankfully, they still had money and property – and Ed had told Oswald the Riddle House was his home for life.

_Yes, it could have ended differently..._

For a brief moment, Ed's eyes shone darkly as he thought of all the insane deeds Riddler had got away with:

_There had been much._

_Way too much on his part..._

_But his dark half, ever hovering at the back of his mind, was happy with life now, happy with Lee and the kids. Love did that, it changed everyone for the better - even the insane..._

A taxi pulled up.

Ed pushed aside his reflections on life and walked towards it as a young woman got out. As the car drove away she stood there in the sunshine, wearing a pale lilac dress with fair hair falling to her shoulders. She smiled, instantly recognising him as he approached her.

“You must be Mr Nygma?” she asked.

“Please, Miss Peacock,” he said, shaking her hand, “Call me Ed.”

On entering the house, Polly Peacock was struck by the age and elegance of the place, the entrance hall was wide and bright and the furnishings as lavish as they would have been decades before, velvet drapes hung at the windows and the walls were adorned with fine paintings. She was led through to a small parlour after passing through a large dining room and then a formal front room, where Ed invited her to sit and she took a seat on a leather sofa.

“I'll fetch us some tea,” Ed told her, and then he left the room.

Somewhere a clock chimed the hour, and as she looked about the place, she was still taking in how grand this old house was – sunlight streamed in through a window, making polished wood look shiny. There were books on shelves and there was a large mirror on the wall above a fireplace that stood dark. Large potted plants sat nearby, catching sun as it poured in. The room was bright with its light but heavily patterned wallpaper, and everything here spoke of elegance of a former age long past.

Ed returned to the room and set a tray down on the table, and as he poured the tea, he looked at Polly and smiled, deciding he _definitely_ felt sure she would be right for the job. It was just instinct... Her blue eyes sparkled as she smiled back at him, and then she paused, hesitating as she summoned words carefully, knowing of the history of this city – _everyone_ knew who Riddler used to be...

“So, you used to be the Riddler.”

He chuckled.

“Was. I'm now just boring Ed Nygma, family man... and it is a pleasure to meet you Miss Peacock – may I call you Polly?”

She smiled too.

“You may.”

“And now, Polly, we should talk business...” Ed's smile faded. He set down the tea in front of her on the wooden table, then took a deep breath.

“I've seen your qualifications and references and I don't doubt you would give one hundred percent to this job – but understand I will need to keep a close eye on how things go with Oswald. You see, his previous assistant seemed perfect for the job – but she was very rough with Oswald... she even left him for three hours in his wet bed... Oswald has a degree of incontinence. She also left him unattended for hours and he had a fall as a result of this... and I happened to catch her planning to leave with a car load of antiques from the house in her vehicle.”

Polly's eyes went wide.

“I hope you called the cops!”

At the back of Ed's mind he recalled his hand about the throat of the thief who had left Oswald lying in his own urine, already injured from a fall the day before. Then he recalled how he had squeezed, choking off her scream.

Then the flash of a blade that went in silver and came out red.

_Riddler could still kill when he needed to kill._

_He would always kill for Oswald..._

He looked at Polly, pulling back from the night his rage had spilled out when he had come over to find Oswald mistreated and the house being robbed.

“I later found out the woman in question had a long career of theft and abuse of clients going back more than twenty years. You can be sure she did _not_ get away with it this time.”

“I'm glad to hear it!” she replied.

“I've checked out your references,” Ed added, “And I'm satisfied that you may be right for this job – you seem like a patient, kind person... You will need a lot of patience with Ozzie! Also, I see you were born and raised in Gotham, you know the city well – I don't doubt you've heard of the Penguin, you know Oswald was once a high profile underworld boss?”

She nodded, looking back at him as she said nothing, unsure of how to respond to such a remark.

“You know he was powerful,” Ed said, “And that he used to run the underworld, and he also fought for this city in wartime?”

She sipped her tea and set it down again.

“I heard all about the war from my late mother,” she replied, “Audrey Peacock used to work in a few of the bars and clubs down town in the old days, maybe you've heard of her?”

“No,” Ed said with an apologetic smile, “I have not heard of her, but maybe she caught my show once or twice, I wouldn't know, so many used to attend, I had fans -”

“The Riddle Factory.”

Ed blinked.

“Yes! Oh, those were good times...” then he turned his thoughts back to more important matters, “I'd like to tell you about Oswald.”

As he said that, Polly noticed his expression changed, sadness had filled his gaze as he looked across the table at her.

“Please do,” she replied, “I've heard of his reputation from the old days, he's something of a legend in this city... I'd love to know more.”

Ed paused for a moment, hating to drag up painful memories.

“Oswald served a long sentence after the war. On the day he was released he left the prison and got into a waiting car, and just as the car began to pull away, gunmen opened fire. I don't know who hired them, but at the time Oswald had plans to reclaim his place in the underworld - and someone wanted to stop him. The car was sprayed with bullets. Oswald was hit multiple times....” Ed paused to take a breath, time had done nothing to ease the shock of what had happened, “Ozzie took several hits, a bullet to the shoulder, one to the back of his head that didn't pierce the brain, but it did take a chunk of bone from his skull, he also took a shot to the lower back. He was critical for a long time...”

Ed paused, taking in a breath to steady himself as he blinked away tears. His hand shook as he reached for his tea and then drew it back again.

“Anyway, he made it, Oswald's been through a lot in life, and he got through that, he survived... That was two years ago. He lives here now, this is my house, but Ozzie can stay forever. He's very unsteady, he needs help with most things, he won't get up and get dressed unless you help him and nag him a lot, he doesn't like being helped, he gets frustrated. But if you get along with him, you'll find he's a lovely guy. You just have to make that connection with him. I think you can do that, Polly.”

Ed blinked away a threat of tears and forced a smile.

“I really do think you're right for this job.”

Polly looked at him doubtfully.

“You sound very sure about that, you don't know me -”

“I know enough,” he assured her, “I have confidence in you. I really do think you will get along with Oswald...” he paused again for thought, then as he looked at her, his mood brightened, “So, tell me more about yourself. Tell me about growing up here in the city...”

She reached for her tea and then began to talk to Ed about her life in the city, and then about how she had later nursed her dying mother, an experience that had led her into her choice of career. Ed listened. Now and then, he asked questions, and she answered honestly. He asked if she had a partner, and she told him she was single – and had never had time for relationships, she was too busy with work since her mother's death.

“You're only twenty-two” Ed replied, “I'm sure there's plenty of time. But it's good to know you don't have any distractions. This job requires you to live here at the house, to be here for Oswald at all times.”

“And I'm happy with that arrangement,” she replied.

Ed fell silent for a moment, just sitting there looking at her, taking in her youthful, pretty face and bright blue gaze and the way the sunlight made her fair hair look golden.

“I would like you to start today,” he said, “Shall we go upstairs and meet Oswald?”

Surprise registered in her gaze.

“I have the job?”

Ed smiled warmly.

”Yes, you do, Polly! I don't doubt I've made the right choice this time,” he got up from his seat, “Let's go and see Ozzie.”

She got up quickly, still feeling surprised that she had landed the job so fast.

“Okay,” she said as she followed him out of the room, “I'd love to meet Oswald!”

“This house is almost a century old,” Ed's voice echoed up the stairway towards the high ceiling as they began to make their way up to the next floor “And it's in great condition. I would appreciate it if you also fulfilled the role of housekeeper too – dust and vacuum once a week, if anything needs fixing, just give me a call and I'll arrange for maintenance to be carried out...”

They had reached the top of the stairs and it was there he paused as she turned to him.

“Mr Nygma -”

“Call me Ed,” he reminded her.

“Ed,” she said, “Who kept this place in order before I showed up? Don't you already have someone to come in and clean?”

“No,” Ed replied, “I prefer to do that myself in absence of trusted staff... I have a gardener come in once a month, but part of the land at the back of the house has been left to ramble. It's not as if Oswald is likely to be taking much time to go for long walks outside anyway...” sadness shaded his gaze once more, “Since the shooting he hasn't left the house much, not that he's under threat now – he's not in any fit state to take over the underworld. But he still owns the Iceberg Lounge. I run it for him. So the authorities didn't take everything from Oswald, he still has the club.”

She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. It was common knowledge that Oswald Cobblepot had survived a very public assassination attempt two years before, but now Ed had spoken to her at length about it, considering the fact that she was going to be living and working here, there was something Polly really needed to know..

“Ed...”

“Yes, Polly?” he asked politely.

“You say he's not under threat any more – are you sure about that? I read about the shooting, and no one was ever arrested for it...They could still be out there.”

“You have nothing to fear,” Ed assured her as he briefly placed a hand on her shoulder, “I was told after the incident that many in the underworld were angered at the attack on Oswald – and there were consequences for those suspected of being involved. The men who opened fire on the car were shot dead by the GCPD moments after the incident. The attack happened because someone wanted to stop Oswald reclaiming his place in the underworld. Everyone knows he's not able to resume his former role now. He never will, so he's no threat to anyone. You have no reason to think you are at risk by staying here – certainly, Oswald isn't at risk, I'm confident enough of that to leave him alone here, Polly. My only concern is the fact that he needs a lot of help. I've employed several staff to assist him since he came out of the hospital, he's not easy to get along with, but the previous helper I employed was the worst! I'm just thankful I found you, Polly.”

As they stood there and she looked up at Ed Nygma, taller than her and looking smart in his green suit, she felt confused by the way he smiled so warmly as if he had absolute confidence in her.

“You barely know me,” she reminded him, “Are you sure you want to give me the job, this is all so quick -”

“I am confident you are trustworthy. I checked out your background and I'm satisfied I've made the right choice.”

Polly gave a small shrug.

“Okay, I just wanted to be sure that you're sure.”

Ed chucked.

“And that's _exactly_ why I know I can trust you! This way,” he added, leading her down an upper hall where the walls were half Victorian style paper and half wood panels where wall lights in tulip shaped bulbs lined the way.

“After you've met Oswald, I'll show you around the house,”Ed told her, “Wait here for a moment, please.”

They had reached the end of the hall. Ed opened up the door to the master bedroom and went inside, closing it softly behind him. Polly stood outside, waiting as she looked up and down the hallway, she could hear the deep and steady tick of a clock downstairs, and nothing else as no sound carried through the heavy closed door with its fine oak panels. She thought about the fact that she was about to meet the Penguin for the first time – _the_ Oswald Cobblepot, once the most powerful underworld figure in the city of Gotham. But she didn't want to think about that fact too much – it was better if she simply thought of him as Oswald, the person she was here to take care of, that sounded a lot less intimidating...

She had heard the stories about the old days, about the Penguin and how his enemies had feared him. Even after the city had fallen, he had been powerful. Some said he was a villain, others called him a monster. And some who recalled how he had fought for the city in the war with Bane, called him a hero. She wasn't sure what was true and what was legend, but she was about to find out.

The door opened.

“Come in, Polly,” Ed said politely, stepping back as she followed him into the room, unsure what to expect on meeting the Penguin for the first time.

“This is Oswald,” said Ed, then he looked to the bed, “Oswald, this is Polly.”

Polly had taken a deep breath as she entered the room. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but as she looked at the man who was resting in a four poster bed, she was certainly surprised:

She had read all about the shooting. She had seen news footage too. The Penguin dressed in a fine suit limping slowly down the steps away from the jail and pausing to speak to reporters moments before the shooting. Back then, he had been overweight, but clearly since the shooting, he had lost that weight, he was almost as slim as he had been back in the days when he had fought for the liberty of the city. His hair was dark and spiked, swept up with a purple streak running through raven black, and she didn't need to ask, instinct told her that Ed had done that for him, just as he did everything else around here to make Oswald comfortable. He was sitting up in bed in cotton pyjamas in a shade of purple and his only visible scar was just below his right eye, which was a striking shade of blue, a contrast with his left, a shade of pale hazel. The eye damage was a legacy of a war injury. And that gaze of his was striking, as she smiled she realised she was blushing. Oswald was a very handsome man, and that was something she had _not_ expected...

“Hello Oswald, “ she said, as she hoped he didn't think she was staring as she kept on looking at him as she tried to fight the blush that was creeping into her cheeks.

Oswald sat there looking back at the young woman with fair hair and bright blue eyes as he smiled warmly. Ed had told him all about her, but he had not mentioned how pretty she was. How sweet and almost... pure? And the way the sunlight fell into the room, her summer dress was almost transparent. He kept his gaze set on her eyes, not daring to let it wander as he raised his hand, beckoning her to come closer. Polly reached his bedside and he grasped her hand warmly as he looked up at her, then he took in a slow breath and shifted his gaze to Ed.

“How...” he whispered, “How... Did you... find...”

He was struggling. Ed had had told her he was limited since the shooting, but until now she had not realised he had trouble with his speech.

“How did I find her?” Ed asked, and Oswald nodded. Her hand was still in his grip, and she was in no hurry to pull away.

“I'll let Polly explain,” Ed told him, and Polly met Oswald's gaze as his hand felt warm and gentle in hers as she began to speak.

“I'd been working for an agency, but I wanted to try something new and wasn't sure what to do next, but then Father Francis – he's the priest at Saint Mary's church – he mentioned he knew of a gentleman who needed a live in helper, and he gave my name to Ed. I didn't realise it was you – I mean, I've heard of you, Oswald, I think everyone in this city knows who you are!”

Oswald smiled as he gave her hand a squeeze.

“You...go to the...church?” he whispered.

“Yes, every Sunday. Father Francis was very helpful while my late mother was sick.”

Oswald's grip on her hand gently tightened as understanding reflected in his eyes.

“I lost my...mother...”

“And that's a loss we can both understand,” Polly agreed, “It's not easy.”

Oswald nodded in agreement as his gaze shifted to a painting on the wall of an older woman in a lavender dress and a silk scarf.

“Is that your mother?” she asked.

Pride shone in Oswald's gaze as he gave a small nod.

“I'll show you a picture of my mother tomorrow when I bring my stuff over,” Polly told him, “I like to keep her picture with me, just like you keep your mother's painting.”

“Oswald,” Ed cut in, “I'm going to show Polly around the house and then I'll bring you some tea.”

Oswald let go of Polly's hand as she glanced at him. He looked at her and their gaze lingered then Ed said her name and she smiled at Oswald.

“I'll be back soon” she said, and as she walked out of the room Oswald watched her leave, for a moment daring to dream about what it would be like to get closer to her. Then he remembered his leg and all the other injuries and damage time had ravaged on him, and he took a deep breath and settled back against his pillow and closed his eyes, slipping into an easy sleep where he dreamed of better times when he had power and a body that was in one piece – even walking with a limp, life had been more bearable than it was now...

Polly walked beside Ed as he led the way back down the hallway.

“We have several bedrooms up here, there's a room in the attic that's very nice too but Oswald said he wants you to have this guest room -” he paused to open up a door to a room with light floral walls and pale pink bedding on a comfortable double bed, in here the furniture was old, dark wood and much in the style of Oswald's larger main bedroom.

“Ozzie wanted you to have a view of the gardens,” Ed added, and he walked into the room and she followed. Ed swept back a white lace net and she looked out to a large, well tended garden where beyond an old brick wall was closed off by a barred metal gate, and a wilderness beckoned beyond where trees and shrubs had been left to grow wild.

“Wow,” she said with a smile, “That walled garden.. it's like a secret garden...”

“It's locked up because it's off limits,” he told her as the curtain fell back into place.

“It looks magical,” she added hopefully.

Ed chuckled.

”It's a mess, a shit heap, just don't go there!” he exclaimed, and then he walked out of the room and she followed.

“There's a bathroom on the other side of the hall, Oswald has an en suite in the main bedroom, and here...” he paused to run his hand over an old fashioned grill before sliding it back to reveal a surprise, “Is the elevator! On the rare occasion Oswald wants to go outside, it's the best way – he has a wheelchair. He can't take the stairs.”

Then he walked on and she followed as he led the way back downstairs again as he began to speak once more.

“Oswald is on pain medication, mainly for his leg – his right leg is damaged knee to ankle, that's a very old injury and it gives him a lot of pain. His lower back causes him trouble too – a legacy of the shooting. He needs help to sit up in the mornings and if he's stiff, massage helps a lot. On the subject of the spine injury, he's slightly incontinent too and he can get upset about it so make sure he stays dry and clean - when he does want to get up and use the chair, he enjoys being downstairs and out in the garden and if you can persuade him to go for a drive, I would be very happy to know that. Take him to the river or over to the club, he needs to get out more. I think he will feel safe with you.”

“I'll try and persuade him.”

“I know you will...” Ed sounded distracted as he stood beside her at the bottom of the stairs, looking about the lower level, “You've seen the dining room and the two parlours... This way...”

He walked off and she hurried to keep up as they passed the rooms she had seen before then came out to a hallway, where he opened up a door to a study, and then went on to a wide kitchen where black and white tiles covered the floor. The kitchen was old but the appliances were modern. Lace nets hung in a half curtain at the window, and the view looked out over the garden.

“I have notes in the study, on the desk,” Ed told her, “Details of Oswald's meds, and his menu, too. He likes good food but _don't_ let him have too much alcohol and _never_ when he's on the painkillers. He will sulk, but be firm about that. And the kitchen is fully stocked, I had a delivery come by yesterday.”

She walked across the kitchen, drawn to a wooden door set into the wall. The door was painted pale yellow and the handle looked old. As she reached for it Ed dashed over, slamming his hand firmly against it as the door vibrated beneath the force of his sudden movement.

“That's just the cellar,” he said quickly, forcing a smile as his hand stayed firmly against the door, “It's been locked for years I don't even have the key any more!” he laughed nervously, “And it's obviously out of bounds to you, Polly – the staircase is rotten, it's dangerous down there. No one goes down there.”

Suddenly he wasn't smiling any more.

“ _No one,”_ he said again.

She nodded, feeling a strange sense of unease. Ed had slammed his hand against that door even though it was locked, as if... he was hiding something down there? The thought made her shiver. She had heard all kinds of rumours about the Riddler and the Penguin back in the old days, but as much as the thought of why he could be keeping that door locked gave her chills, it still intrigued her...

Ed had started to make tea for Oswald. His phone rang.

“Excuse me, that's my wife,” he said, sounding suddenly harassed, then he opened up the kitchen door and stepped outside.

“Yes, Lee, I said I won't be long,” he said as he stepped away from the back door and into the sunshine, “I was just showing Polly around the house. Her and Oswald have met and I think he likes her, I'm convinced she's right for the job -” he paused, “Yes, I know I said I'd do the school run... I'm just going to make Oswald's tea, then I'll pick the kids up, then I'm back here to cook for him. Polly starts work tomorrow...”

And while Ed was on the phone talking to his wife, Polly set about making that tea for Oswald, because she was keen to help out. And while she did that, she kept looking towards that locked cellar door.

It was a weird feeling, almost as if every time she turned her back, something was looking at her:

_Eyes on the back of her neck._

_Or something urging her to unlock that door._

She tried not to think about it too much, but she kept looking from the tea to the cellar door, as some kind of invisible pull was dragging her towards it...

Her mind was made up now, when she started work tomorrow, she would have to look for the key.

_Polly had to get that door open._

_She needed to know what Ed was so keen to hide._

_It was red hot burning curiosity now, she just had to know what was locked away down in that cellar..._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Oswald woke early as the front door closed and the sound carried through the house. He turned over in bed and gave a groan into the pillow as his lower back throbbed and his crippled leg shot through with sharp pain. His ankle was stiff again and this morning, Ed wouldn't be here too long – Polly was coming to stay, and that thought would have made him smile if not for his discomfort. He reached out to the night stand and grabbed his phone, then sent a text to Ed:

_Are you here?_

_Yes, downstairs, see you in a minute,_ Ed replied.

Oswald breathed a relieved sigh as he turned on his back and pain throbbed again. He was fully aware he had peed a little before waking, and his incontinence pad needed to be changed. That wasn't the first task he wanted the lovely Polly to carry out on arriving here to start work for the first time.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Let me put the bags in your room,” he heard Ed call out, “I'll check in on Oswald, Polly. You wait downstairs for now, make yourself at home. I left a list in the kitchen.”

Oswald pushed up his pillows and managed to sit up, he heard the door to Polly's room open, Ed left the bags inside and then moments later the bedroom door opened. Ed came in and shut it behind him.

“Polly's downstairs, I left her with instructions for breakfast, and I told her to make herself at home... And Oswald,” Ed stepped closer to the bed as he kept his voice low, “I know we discussed everything yesterday, but I just want to remind you not to -”

“Ed...” Oswald reached for his arm, closing his hand over it as he sat up leaning on his best friend, “I think ...” he gave a hiss of pain as his leg throbbed, “I can... trust -”

“No!” Ed said firmly, “Not yet, Oswald! Get to know her. Let's be sure we can trust her before we let her in properly. Promise me.”

Oswald looked at him defiantly.

“ _Promise!”_ Ed whispered.

Oswald nodded, shooting him a reluctant glare.

“Sit up properly,” Ed replied as his voice softened, “I'm going to get you cleaned up and changed and then _maybe_ I can persuade you to get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast?”

Ed brought his wheelchair over to the bedside.

Oswald glared at him.

“You're getting dressed, Ozzie,” Ed told him as he helped him into the chair and Oswald sucked in a sharp breath as his back and leg throbbed at the same time, “What suit do you want to wear today?”

Oswald had not intended to get out of bed, to face the pain of movement at all that day, but now Ed was wheeling him towards the bathroom he had just remembered Polly had arrived, and suddenly, getting up didn't seem like such a bad idea.

“Blue,” he said quietly.

“The blue one?”

“Yes,” was all he said in reply.

Polly had gone through to the kitchen, where she had found a note on the counter listing what Oswald wanted for breakfast. Ed had been very specific that Oswald liked his eggs poached and soft and his toast lightly toasted, and he required tea with it. She also remembered he had told her to make herself at home, so she had made coffee for herself before starting work, and as she stood there with the cup in her hand and the aroma rising from it, her gaze shifted to that locked cellar door. She wondered:

_What was down there?_

_Why was Ed so keen to keep her out of there?_

She was still looking at that locked door, and the longer she looked, the more she felt fascinated yet chilled to the bone at the same time. There had been something about his whole demeanour when he had slammed his hand on the door and said, no one was allowed down there...

Maybe, it was nothing. Or maybe there was something.

“ _What's your favourite colour?”_

She gave a gasp, turning from the sight of the locked door and almost dropping her cup as she saw Ed had walked into the room and was standing close by. She felt caught out, had he seen her staring at that locked door?

“I didn't mean to make you jump,” he said, “I just came to let you know Oswald's up and dressed, I brought him downstairs and he's having breakfast in the dining room today. And I saw you standing there, and I just wondered... what _is_ your favourite colour, Polly?”

She looked at Edward Nygma, feeling a little uneasy.

He stood there looking back at her awkwardly.

“Is it okay if I ask you that?”

“Blue,” she replied, feeling confused, “My favourite colour is blue. Why did you ask?”

“Nothing, I just wondered,” Ed replied, and he stood there saying no more for a moment as he looked at her. She looked back at him as the thought struck her that actually, Ed was a rather odd guy...

“It kind of fits nicely,” Ed added, “You working here, looking after Oswald. The Peacock and the Penguin. Ozzie's favourite colour combinations are peacock shades, by the way....” he paused for thought, then remembered something and snapped his fingers, “And today, Ozzie is wearing a blue suit! What a coincidence!”

Ed smiled.

Polly smiled too. _Yep, Nygma certainly was odd... Yesterday, she had missed it because she was wrapped up in landing a new job. But today, she had spotted it. And he was looking at her rather intently..._

“Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?” Polly wondered.

“No, I'm leaving soon but if you need anything, just call me – but I'm sure you and Oswald will get along fine. I won't stay for breakfast, I'll keep Ozzie company until the food is ready... I'd better get back to him now and let you get on, Polly.”

He smiled again. She did too, purely to be polite, and then as he turned away and left the kitchen she breathed a relieved sigh, then set about making breakfast for Oswald.

By the time she brought breakfast through to the dining room, Ed was ready to leave. His gaze lingered on her after he said goodbye to Oswald, and she smiled and assured him she would call if she needed any help, and then Ed left the house, leaving her wondering why the hell he was so damned odd around her. _Did Nygma find her attractive?_ If he did, he was wasting his time. Oswald was the one who had the power to make her blush, not that she could tell him that, she decided as she set out his breakfast and he sat there at the table in his wheelchair looking handsome in his fine suit with his hair spiked and carrying the scent of costly cologne. Yes, Oswald was an attractive man - but he was also disabled and needed a lot of help. To even think about flirting with him would be unprofessional – and cruel – he could barely speak, he was in constant pain and it would just be inappropriate to let him know how she felt...

“Do you need any help?” she asked as she set down the food and then the tea.

Oswald shook his head, then he gestured to the seat beside his own place at the table.

“You want me to sit with you?”

He smiled as his eyes sparkled. She couldn't resist smiling back as she sat down. Oswald picked up the knife and fork and started to eat. While he ate, she talked, telling him about about her memories growing up in post war Gotham with her single parent mother, who was always working and often absent. Oswald listened, then spoke quietly.

“My...mother raised me...alone.”

She nodded.

“You were close to her?”

Oswald smiled, confirming a lifetime of fond memories that would ever reside deep in his heart.

“I'll show you a picture of my Mom,” said Polly, and she left the table, went upstairs to her room and opened up her bag and took out a small framed picture. By the time she returned to the dining room, Oswald had finished breakfast, he sipped his tea then set the fine china cup back on its saucer and looked at her with interest as she showed him the picture of a tall woman with fair hair who stood smiling in a garden.

“Her name was Audrey,” Polly said, “Audrey Peacock – she used to work around the bars and clubs in down town Gotham before the war. Later, she got a job running a bar and we lived upstairs above it. I don't recall the early days, I was just a baby at the time.”

“And... y-your father?” Oswald asked softly as he struggled again but succeeded in making his voice heard.

“I never knew him. Mom said he was just a guy she saw for a short while, then life changed... he was probably killed in the war, that's what she told me.”

Oswald nodded sadly.

“Bad...times,” he concluded, “But you. You...” he paused, taking a breath as he summoned the flow of his speech once more, “look like her... pretty.”

He smiled warmly and so did she, as Oswald reached out and briefly grasped her hand.

“Polly.”

“Yes, Oswald?”

He let go of her hand, indicating to the door that led to the garden.

“You want to go outside for a while?”

He smiled again as he nodded.

“That's a good idea,” she agreed as she got up and turned his chair away from the table, “I'll sit you in the shade, by the table at the edge of the lawn, then I'll bring your tea to you.”

“ _No.”_

Oswald said that as they went outside, and he pointed across the lawn to a an old fashioned summer house that sat beneath the shade of a tree at the bottom of the garden close to the old brick wall. It was all glass and wood and well maintained with its white paint gleaming in the sun, the windows were part shaded by soft white nets.

“You want to go over there?”

“Yes,” Oswald confirmed and she began to push his chair up the path that cut down the centre of the lawn.

“The garden is lovely,” she told him.

“It's Ed's,” he reminded her as they neared the summer house.

She opened up the door and looked inside. Its wood interior was painted white, the doors opened up into a wide space where light filtered in softly. There was a comfortable chaise on one side of the room, padded deeply and with pillows added for extra comfort. On the other side of the room was a couple of chairs and there were books on a shelf and an old fashioned radio was placed on a small table nearby.

“Do you come out here often?” she asked as he indicated to the chaise and she wheeled him over to it.

“No,” Oswald said quietly, and he looked up at her and smiled.

She helped him out of his chair, he held on to her tightly as he gave a hiss of pain as he managed to briefly stand, then as his crippled leg gave way and he fell back on to the chaise, pulling her with him, he landed with a soft thump, pain cancelled out by the generous padding beneath him as she gave a gasp, still holding on to him. For a brief, awkward moment her face was fraction from his as her hands slid over the fabric of his elegant dark blue suit and his eyes locked with hers. Then he looked at her apologetically as he smiled, and he placed a hand on her arm as the other accidentally slid up her leg below the hemline of her skirt.

“Sorry!” he said quickly, and she shook her head, reassuring him with a smile as she helped him to sit up and then put a pillow behind his back and raised his damaged leg on to the chaise. Oswald's touch had made her skin tingle. His soft hand against her thigh had made her throb as if her clit was about to explode as she had looked into his eyes and thought about him licking at her sex, sucking on her pussy as she knelt there over his face and he ate her, fucking ate her _so_ hard she exploded in a rush of climax that soaked his face...Her cheeks were crimson at such thoughts. As she drew back, Oswald was still looking at her as he took off his jacket, then his tie and loosened up his shirt, opening the first few buttons to allow for the heat of the day. He handed her his jacket and tie and she draped the items over a nearby chair.

“Polly...” he pointed to a small fan that was on a shelf, and she switched it on as the blades began to turn and the heat rising in the summerhouse began to instantly cool.

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” she replied, and for a moment as she stood there and he rested on the chaise, their shared gaze lingered.

“I need to go back to the house now, Oswald. Ed said you can text me if you need anything? I'm going to do some cleaning and laundry, then I'm making lunch for around mid day. But I won't forget to bring you more tea around eleven am. Does that sound good?”

Oswald smiled as he nodded.

“Would you like me to turn the radio on?” she asked.

He shook his head and then indicated to the table. She turned around, seeing a note pad and pen next to the radio, and picked it up and handed it to him.

Oswald briefly paused to write on the paper, and then he turned it around towards Polly. She smiled as she read a message written in neat, flowing handwriting:  
 _Lunch sounds great. And please join me. Let's eat together, my dear?_

Polly stepped closer and reached for the pen, then turned the page as she wrote her reply and handed the pad back to Oswald. He read it and his eyes sparkled as his smile got brighter. Polly had replied, _I would love to have lunch with you, Oswald._

“Ozzie,” he whispered, “Call...me... Ozzie.”

Suddenly she felt shy again as she blushed. She knew her cotton panties were soaked through and that ache was refusing to go away as she looked back at him, still feeling arousal she could not ignore as her cheeks flushed and she was thankful in that moment for all his former power in this city, Oswald Cobblepot could not read minds.

“I'll go and fetch your tea, then I have to get to work, Ozzie,” she told him, and their gaze lingered until she turned away and left the summerhouse. As she crossed the lawn and headed back towards the house her heart was racing and she knew her face was deeply flushed now. She felt desperately turned on, and ashamed at the same time to think she was lusting after Oswald, who had no clue of the effect he had on her. Poor Ozzie was relying on her to look after him and she was having such sinful thoughts... But no matter how she tried to turn her thoughts away from her attraction to Oswald, it didn't stop her panties from being damp or the wetness making the top of her thighs sticky...

Polly's thoughts were not on the cellar door and what might be behind it as she took Oswald his tea, put the laundry in the washing machine and then cleaned the bathroom and dusted the study. Then her phone buzzed as she got a message from Oswald that made her smile:

_Comfortable out here. You should join me. And no tea this time. Lemonade would be nice, for both of us._

She poured lemonade into two glasses, added ice and went outside, crossing the wide lawn to join him in the summer house.

As she walked towards him, Oswald was on the chaise watching her. His phone buzzed and he looked down at the message from Ed:

_Keep your mouth shut, Ozzie! It's too soon!_

_But I like her and we have reason enough to trust her after your extensive research,_ Oswald sent back, then he turned off his phone and set it aside, determined to do this his way, because it was clear Ms Peacock was perfect for the job, and after all Ed had told him, he was convinced he could trust her... A sly smile crept across his face as he made his decision, and that decision was vastly influenced by the fact that he found her captivating. It had been a long time since anyone had turned his head. He had once thought no one would ever want him again after the shooting – and maybe he was still right about that – but he had never been one to give in to challenging situations, that was why he had wound up becoming the king of Gotham. Determination had got him everywhere in life, and the fact that pain had never stopped him in the past also had great bearing on this matter. His heart was fluttering like a trapped bird in a cage as he thought about what he was about to do:

_Ed would not approve._

_But Ed had no say in this..._

Oswald sat up quickly as Polly entered the summerhouse carrying two glasses of lemonade. Pain briefly registered on his face as his lower back throbbed, then he pushed the pillow behind him down lower to cushion the ache, and felt much better. He let her set the glasses down on a small table next to the chaise before reaching for the notepad, and as she pulled up a chair and sat close to him Oswald smiled, then he looked down at the paper and quickly began to write.

“What's this about?” Polly asked.

Oswald smiled again as he glanced up at her, then he looked down at the paper once more as the pen moved quickly across it, finishing all he needed to say. As he tore off the paper and handed it to her, he was glad he had done it this way and given her chance to put those glasses down first, because if he had simply revealed his secret as she walked in, she would have dropped the lemonade...He sat there comfortable on his seat as he watched her read the note.

Polly had to read it a second time as her eyes went wide:

 _'Dear Polly,'_ Oswald had written, _'As Ed is convinced you are right for this job - and I too sense his opinion is correct - I would like to let you in on a small secret: I am not as limited as I appear to be. Yes, my leg is painful and my back has caused me a lot of pain and nerve issues which leads to a rather embarrassing and slight problem with my continence – but the rest is all a smoke screen. We decided it was best to keep my recovery quiet due to the assassination attempt. It seemed like the safest bet for a peaceful life.'_

“You're not as limited as you appear to be?” she repeated.

She felt utterly confused as she lowered the note and looked at Oswald. He reached for her hand, grasping it gently as he met her gaze and his eyes sparkled with warmth.

“ _So you see my dear, I needed you to know the truth. I can speak very well and also, on a good day, I don't need the wheelchair. I wanted to be fair on you and be honest about this, as it wouldn't have been right to have you looking after me like I was helpless. I am limited, mainly due to my leg and my back but as for the rest, I made an excellent recovery!”_

His hand was still in her grip. Polly stared at him. Oswald had just spoken fluently, in a soft and silky voice as his words flowed with eloquence.

“So you just let people think the outcome was worse than it really is, so your enemies don't try and kill you again?”

“That's right!” Oswald replied, “But the Iceberg Lounge makes more than enough money for both me and Ed to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. And it's true that I need help with my mobility – my back took a lot of damage from that bullet. The last thing I needed when I already had a crippled leg! But I wanted you to know the truth, I also wanted to enjoy conversation with you, Polly. And now we can do that.”

He smiled.

She was still looking at him in surprise as he let go of her hand, reached for the lemonade and sipped it.

“I'm glad you can speak,” she said as she smiled too and her face began to flush as she thought again how handsome he was, “So what exactly do you need help with, Oswald?”

“Getting in and out of bed, taking a bath, moving from my chair to another seat, I can walk with a cane but it's painful and I'm on medication for the worst of it. Some mornings I can't face getting out of bed - but a day like this one has been worth it.”

She nodded in agreement as the sun shone into the summer house.

”It is a lovely day,” she agreed.

”I meant sharing your company,” Oswald said, and then he looked away, hit by a rush of shyness as he thought about his shattered leg and his spinal injury and the fact that he really didn't have much to offer Polly – and he needed to stop thinking about how pretty she was, he reminded himself.

“I enjoy your company too, Oswald,” she told him, ”And it's so peaceful in here, too. It's the perfect place to relax.”

“Yes it is -” Oswald took in a sharp breath. His hand shifted below his belt, as he briefly closed his eyes, feeling embarrassment take over.

“I need the bathroom... just had an accident... Oh damn, this is shameful....”

“Is anyone else around today?” she asked quickly.

Oswald shook his head.

“No, it's just you and I, Polly.”

“Stay there, you don't need to go all the way back to the house, I can clean you up here,” she said, and then before he could object, she left the summer house.

Oswald knew that small leak that had gone through to the pad in his underwear was just the start. He was about to piss his pants... He grabbed the lemonade and tipped the contents into a plant pot that stood by the window, then he unbuttoned his pants, reached inside and took out his cock and peed quickly into the glass as he breathed a slow sigh of relief. This often happened, he suddenly needed to go, with little warning...

The tall glass was almost full to the brim. He leaned forward stiffly as his back ached and opened up a window and quickly poured the yellow liquid out on to the lawn, and as he saw Polly walking back across the garden, he closed the window and put the glass back on the table as she joined him.

“This won't take long,” Polly said softly.

Oswald laid back, closing his eyes as he didn't dare think about how gentle her touch was as she took down his underwear and changed the pad and then wiped him with a very cool and soft wet wipe. Being touched so gently took his embarrassment away, as being attended to by Polly in the summerhouse had suddenly made his list of some of the most erotic experiences of his life...

Polly had worked quickly and carefully, changing him and cleaning him up as the thought crossed her mind that Oswald was clearly well endowed – it was something she couldn't fail to miss, and she tried not to think about what a magnificent cock he had as she pulled up his underwear and then tidied his clothing.

“Thank you,” Oswald said, and as he tried to sit up, he failed as pain shot through his back. Polly put her arm around him, helping him to sit up slowly and carefully, and then she thought about how little pee had been on that wet pad.

“I brought a bottle with me – in case you need to pee.”

“Oh no, I'm fine,” Oswald said with a smile.

She looked from Oswald to the empty lemonade glass.

“You didn't just use that drinking glass -”

“Of course not!” Oswald laughed as his face flushed, “But I don't want any more lemonade,” he added, “I'm just looking forward to lunch now.”

“And lunch is coming up,” she said, then she gathered up the drinking glasses and the used pad that was now sealed in a bag, and left the summer house.

While Oswald rested, he had no clue that Polly's face had flushed harder as she walked away, heading quickly for the house. She disposed of the pad and put the glasses in the dish washer and then went to the bathroom to wash her hands, all the while only too aware that her cotton panties were slick and stuck to her slit, her clit was swollen and throbbing and...

_He would never know._

She felt guilty, lusting after Oswald, who was in her care and had just been embarrassed at the fact that she had changed him and cleaned him up in the summer house, while he laid there and looked up at the ceiling too ashamed to say a word. And her eyes had been on his cock the whole time, his dark pubic hair was soft with just a few grey hairs mixed in with jet black. He had a scar just below his hip, it looked like an old wound, maybe a knife or bullet scar from many years back – but even a scar had not distracted her from his thick, long cock as she gently wiped him clean...

She sat on the edge of the bath and pulled her skirt up and her panties down. Her legs were parted and everything was pink and swollen and gleaming, her thighs were sticky and she ached deep inside at the thought of what it would be like to be penetrated by Oswald's cock. She had never been fucked, never cared enough for anyone to go all the way – she was still a virgin. But she was no stranger to the demands her clitoris made and today, she was burning with desire that she couldn't fight. She wasn't going to wash her hands now, not until she had finished, because there was something she wanted to do first... Polly slid one hand downward as her fingers met swollen heat, rubbing away the ache that was growing in her engorged core as she raised her other hand, sniffing her fingers:

 _The scent of Oswald's cock_.

As she rubbed harder, she closed her eyes, inhaling that scent as she imagined him licking her down there, sliding his fingers into her wetness as juice ran out and glistened on her thighs. She pictured herself in bed, taking his cock for the first time, every last inch of it as he took her virginity. She came with a sharp gasp and a gush of wetness that came away in a gleaming trail as she drew her hand back from her swollen slit. She was breathless as she sat there, heart still racing as sheer relief washed over her to have relief from this strong wave of sexual arousal.

But Oswald was much older than her - and he was also disabled.

He had no clue how much he turned her on...

She was starting to feel guilty now. He had even told her the truth, that his recovery had been much better than the city had been led to believe. He had trusted her and here she was, masturbating over him in his bathroom while her fingers smelled of her wet pussy and his cock – he had trusted her to clean him up, not knowing she had harboured lustful thoughts. Yes, she felt ashamed now...

“ _Sorry, Oswald,”_ she whispered, then she pulled up her sticky underwear and went to the sink and washed her hands before leaving the bathroom, her thoughts now on lunch and civil conversation with Oswald that would _not_ involve thoughts of what she wanted him to do to her in bed...

The rest of the day passed by pleasantly. Her guilt remained, but she enjoyed Oswald's company through lunch and later, back at the house, through dinner. Just after eight pm they took the elevator to the upper floor where she ran him a bath and then helped him to undress and climb into it. He assured her he could bathe by himself, but would need help to get out again. Polly had told herself she wouldn't look, but she did, taking in the sight of every scar on his lean but toned body, as she tried not to look at his cock or his balls. She wanted to stay and bathe him, but the water was doing wonders for his back, and he told her he could manage. She returned a short while later to help him out again, and felt mildly disappointed to find he was able to wrap himself in a bathrobe before sitting in his chair to towel dry his hair. She took him to the bedroom and he gratefully accepted her help as she eased him into bed, his leg was stiff and she gave it a rub, as she wished her hands could wander over the rest of his body while he spoke in his velvet tones to her, murmuring words of approval.

But that didn't happen.

Oswald went to bed just before nine pm, and bid her a fond goodnight, then he turned out his light and she left the room, going back to her own bedroom, feeling very much alone.

The weather was warm that night and she had taken off her panties. They stunk of wet pussy and she had grabbed a shower before putting on a short, light dressing gown, then she had sat on the bed watching the dusk begin to fade away as night beckoned. The shadows crept over the walled garden as she wondered what lie beyond that locked gate. Then her thoughts turned back to the cellar... She only went back downstairs for a glass of water, with plenty of ice in it, because it was a hot night.

But once she was in the kitchen, she looked again to that cellar door. She saw a light switch on the wall beside the door and went over and pressed it. A dim light glowed beneath the gap at the bottom of the door. She leaned down and peered through the keyhole:

Stairs went downward, old wooden stairs – and they did look rotten, as if they might cave in at any time. All she could see was the first few steps, the rest disappeared off away from the view of the keyhole...

_Where was that bloody key?_

_She had to find it!_

Polly snapped off the light and the glow beneath the locked door vanished, just as the kitchen door opened and she gave a gasp, as the glass slid from her hand and smashed on the tiled floor. He stood there in shadow for a moment, tall and lean and looking right at her, then he stepped through the doorway.

“I didn't mean to scare you!” said Ed Nygma, and then he looked from Polly to the cellar door and back to Polly again as he closed the door behind him and walked over to join her.

“What were you doing just now?” he asked, “I told you the cellar is off limits.”

Polly looked up at him as she mentally scrambled for a reply. It had occurred to her yet again that being this close to Ed, there as something a little off about the way he looked at her, the way he had crept up on her, too...

“I was just getting a glass of water. I was nowhere near the cellar. Why are you here so late?”

Ed glanced over her shoulder to the open doorway, seeing no sign of Oswald in the hallway beyond, and then he lowered his voice.

“I need to talk to you about Oswald, it's important,” he said, and then he pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.

“We have a few things to discuss,” he added.

Polly drew out a chair and took a seat, still feeling uneasy as she looked across the table at Ed, who had an expression in his eyes that she couldn't quite read, and it made her rather nervous:

_What the hell did he want, coming over here to talk to her about Oswald at this time of night?_

“And this needs to stay between us,” Ed added, “It seems Oswald and I both have to hope you're good at keeping secrets, Polly...”

She looked back at him with wide eyes, like a deer caught in headlights as she wondered what this was about and why Ed was looking at her so intently and so very, very coldly...


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Polly looked across the table at Ed, who looked back at her whilst pausing for thought as tapped his fingers on the wooden surface. Finally, he spoke up.

“Oswald likes you, Polly. He seems to think we can trust you with the knowledge that his recovery was much better than we led the city and the current ruling underworld to believe. I sure hope we can trust you with that information, because Oswald's safety is dependant on you keeping that matter secret.”

He wasn't just looking at her now, he was staring. And those words had been spoken in a _very_ icy tone. She tried to ignore the tension that had crept through her bones from the moment he had lurked in the doorway.

“Oswald's secret is safe, you have my word.”

Ed smiled.

“It had better be. I'm _very_ protective towards my best friend.”

“You can trust me, Ed.”

He looked at her intently, his head tilting slightly as his gaze stayed fixed on her.

“Don't look so worried. I happen to believe you. I just needed to hear you say that. Tell me, do you usually get up in the night because you can't sleep, or are you just getting used to the house?”

As he asked that question he leaned back in his chair, still with his gaze fixed on her. She got up from the table and went over to a cupboard, where she opened it up to find the cleaning items she needed.

“I need to sweep up the broken glass.”

“That's cool, we can talk while you do that.”

She turned from the cupboard avoiding Ed's gaze, then began to carefully sweep up the broken glass.

“Okay, I don't mind doing that. And no, I usually sleep well, but it's a warm night.”

Ed was still at the table, watching her as she swept up the fragments. He was still watching her as she threw them in the trash and then cleaned up the water from the floor.

“You don't say much.”

“It's late,” she replied, trying not to think about the fact that it had really set her on edge, the way he crept about the house, watched her, stared at her... But he had not actually _done_ anything to cause her to complain or speak up – he looked at her face, not her body, he looked into her eyes and asked harmless questions... but it was just _there,_ a feeling that something wasn't quite right with this guy...

The cleaning up was finished. She turned back to Ed, who was still sitting at the table.

“You really don't need to worry about me knowing the true state of Oswald's health,” she assured him again, “I'm getting to know him, and I like Oswald, and it's a pleasure to be here to help him. You did make the right choice – and so did he, to tell me the truth. His secret is safe.”

Ed slowly nodded and as he looked at her, she still felt uneasy, like he was staring, more than that - as if he could see right through her.

“You seem a little jumpy around me, Polly.”

“No, I'm not!” she forced a laugh as she reached for another glass, then she filled it with water and fetched some ice and then set it down on the counter, determined not to be so jumpy that a second glass got broken that evening.

Her back was still turned as he spoke again.

“I thought maybe you'd heard the rumours, about the time I spent in Arkham asylum. Maybe it gives you the creeps.”

She turned back towards him.

”No, not at all.”

“So you did know that?”

“I only know what most people know, this town likes to preserve its history about its high profile criminals from the old days, Ed.”

“So you've researched me?”

He started to smile.

“I only read about the Riddler and the Penguin because I wanted some background on you both before I came here.”

His smile got wider as the coldness in his gaze turned to a shine with perhaps a hint of the old madness he had once been known for.

“So tell me, who did you read about the most, me or Oswald?”

She looked back at him feeling awkward. She couldn't tell him she had extensively read about Oswald's life purely because she had been heavily drawn to the news articles because she found Oswald so attractive... Attraction was the last thing she ever wanted to discuss with Edward Nygma...

“I...I just read a little information.”

Ed cocked an eyebrow.

“I bet that would be the juicy stuff about all that went on years ago!”

She was suddenly very aware that she was standing there in the kitchen in nothing but a short, silken robe. As he sat there at the table, he was looking into her eyes and his gaze didn't wander, but he wasn't blinking either, just... _staring_... Or maybe he just had an intense gaze. Either way, she didn't want to think too deeply about that, because then he would realise how uneasy he made her feel.

“No, I just read a few facts...”

“You're probably aware I have been in and out of Arkham Asylum many times back in the day. Oswald was once held there too. But don't let that worry you, Polly.”

He flashed a smile. She forced a smile back, briefly, then reached for her glass of water.

“It's late, I should be going to bed now.”

He rose from his seat and spoke up again.

“I forgot – I have some pictures in my wallet of my wife and kids, let me show you.”

“Okay.”

She took in a slow breath as she walked over to join him, setting the glass down on the table just in case her hand shook. He drew out his wallet and opened it up, showing her pictures of Lee and the kids, smiling proudly as he told her all about his large family.

“So you see, my life has changed a lot since I was once labelled a dangerous psychopath,” he said with a chuckle, “I love my family, they make me so happy.”

Now she finally had a subject that would maybe stop him looking at her like she was made of glass.

“I'm glad you're happy,” she said with a smile as she looked up at him, “You're a husband and a daddy now.”

Surprise briefly registered on his face, and then he chuckled.

“ _Daddy?”_ he exclaimed, “Oh no, Polly. My kids call me _Father_...” he lowered his voice, leaning a little closer, _“I was being called Daddy long before I ever had kids and it certainly had no paternal meaning!”_

He chuckled again, then winked.

“Goodnight, Polly. I'll be sure to stop by again soon.”

Then he left by the back door, closing it behind him as she placed her hand where her short robe crossed at her chest and pulled the fabric closer as she gave a shiver:

_Daddy?_

_Was that some kind of bondage term?_

_Was Nygma trying to come on to her, after showing her pictures of his family, after talking about his many stays in Arkham?_

She went over to the back door, locked it firmly then left the room, snatching up the iced water as she passed the table. As she headed for the stairs she quickened her pace in her hurry to get back to her room, where she could close the door, then remind herself the house was now locked up, and so she could get some sleep. She didn't want to think about the fact that Ed had a key to this place. He really did give her the creeps, and maybe that was something she should raise with Oswald in the morning...

Oswald woke early the next day. The sun was rising and through the open window he heard the sound of birdsong carried from the trees. The breeze slipped into the room and he folded down the covers, opening up his pyjama top and giving a sigh as the cool air kissed his skin. Closing his eyes again, he tugged at his clothing, pulling down his underwear and a dry incontinence pad as he felt a stirring of arousal in his cock. His hand was down there now, he started to stroke himself slowly, thinking about Polly, imagining he didn't have a damaged back and a painful stiff leg, thinking about her and him together, in a fantasy world where he was her lover:

He pictured himself on his back, naked with his legs open while she tenderly bathed him, intimately, slowly, then she lowered her head, tracing a path of kisses soft as a butterfly down his belly and through his pubic hair before taking his hard cock in her mouth...

Oswald was breathing harder as his hand moved faster, jerking desperately at his hardening cock as he tried not to think about the fact that it had been years since he had been close to anyone, and he didn't even know if he was up to sex, literally, if he _could_ be up to it after all this time... but in his dreams he was coming in her mouth and -

Oswald gave a quiet gasp as come shot from his cock, the first spurt ran over his hand as the second hit his pulled down underwear and spattered the incontinence pad that was now wet – but only with a liberal dose of semen. He gave his cock a final stroke and then lay there breathing hard as he perspired lightly and as the early morning breeze kissed his flesh, reviving him as he recovered. Just as he drew his hand away from his softening cock, urine leaked out, then trickled faster.

“ _Shit!”_ he whispered, and sat up quickly, too late to grab for the stained pad as pee ran over his leg and on to the mattress. He managed to stop the flow, just in time to grab a urine bottle and place it between his legs, then the rest of it flowed quickly as he breathed a relieved sigh. Then he realised he was stuck with a bottle of pee, a wet bed and his underwear was still down because the pad was covered in his come. He looked to his wheelchair. If he stood up, he could lean on the night stand then reach for it. But his leg would hurt, he hated walking even a few steps.

“ _Not a great start to the day!”_ he muttered, and gave a hiss of pain as he sat up and then swung his legs to the floor as pain throbbed in his ankle.

As he stood up his leg was agony and he leaned hard on the night stand, breaking into a sweat as gave a gasp of pain. And the door opened and he froze, looking down at the furniture instead of over to the doorway as he heard Polly say, _Are you alright, Oswald?_

“I need to get cleaned up,” he said, still avoiding her gaze as he knew his face was flushing. He was leaning on the furniture for support with his underwear down, the sheets were back, the bed was wet and he felt so ashamed.

“It's okay,” Polly said, and she brought the chair over to him, then she drew down his underwear and as he sat down, stripped it off. Oswald was still blushing as he silently hoped she didn't notice there was semen all over that incontinence pad... But she put his clothing and the pad aside and paused to help him take off his top, then she wheeled him towards the bathroom.

“If I put the seat down in the shower, are you okay to wash on your own while I change the bed?” she asked.

“Yes, I can do that. Thank you Polly. And I'm so sorry about this... _mess!_ ”

As they entered the bathroom he turned his head and looked up at her as the light caught on his purple streak and black spikes messed up by sleep.

“There's no need to apologise,” she reminded him, then she turned down the seat in the shower and helped him from the chair to the seat, and carefully turned on the water to a comfortable temperature.

“I'll be fine now, thank you,” Oswald told her.

She smiled fondly and left the bathroom. Oswald reached for the shower gel, his mind still on his dirty secret as he hoped she didn't notice he had recently masturbated and left evidence in his underwear...

Polly's thought before opening the bedroom door had been to check on Oswald, to see if he was awake and ask him if he wanted breakfast. Then she had planned to mention Ed making her feel uneasy. But since seeing Oswald naked and helping him into the shower, her thoughts had switched to the undeniable attraction she felt for him, last night she had slept uneasily after Ed's visit, but now her mind was as full of lust as her sex was swelling and her panties were damp all over again. She ached inside to feel his cock there – she had never had a cock, never penetrated herself either, not even with a finger... she had always left that part of her body alone. Her clitoris was a different matter, it demanded _so_ much attention and Oswald had fired that right up without even knowing about it...

She had set his clothing aside to strip the bed and change the sheets, and once that was done she returned to the bathroom, thankful for the smell of shower gel in the air because there was nothing like the heat of a summer morning and a steamed up bathroom to bring out the smell of her wet pussy, but thankfully, the woody scents of the shower gel had masked it as she helped Oswald up, then out of the shower. He was back in his chair and drying his hair with a towel by the time she left him to wheel himself back into the bedroom, then she opened up the wardrobe and he had assured her everything he needed was within his reach.

“I'll be back in a minute,” she said, and scooped up his pyjamas and underwear and left the room as Oswald sat there in his chair looking into the wardrobe as his eyes widened: He really hoped she didn't see the come on that pad... she probably wouldn't look... At least he hoped she didn't, as his face flushed and he reached inside to take out a suit and the thought crossed his mind that perhaps, if he could at least partly dress himself, that might impress her...

Polly had taken the laundry downstairs by the time she realised Oswald's incontinence pad was still in his underwear. She had put his pyjamas in the washing machine, then she removed the pad from his underwear, and stopped, looking down at the pad: It wasn't pissy. But it was wet and glistening with something white...

_Oswald had come on this?_

She cautiously sniffed at the pad.

_No pee._

_Just the scent of his come..._

Now she felt guilty but curious and needy, so needy for satisfaction she was sure she had to be _so_ pathetic and desperate that she didn't deserve this job to be doing what had just crossed her mind...

_But she did it anyway._

She placed her finger in the wet, white slick and slid it downward, sliding her finger through Oswald's semen. Then she looked at his come glistening on her fingertip and fought the urge no longer, putting her finger in her mouth and sucking.

_Tasting his come for the first time..._

She closed her eyes for a moment, savouring the taste, imagining him coming into her mouth, him sitting comfortable on the sofa or in his wheelchair, dressed in a fine suit with his lips parted as he came with a sigh - or maybe a sharp gasp - and his come pumped hot into her mouth as she tasted this, a mouthful of it...

She snapped her eyes open, coming sharply to her senses.

 _You dirty fucking bitch!_ she said to herself, and her voice inside her own head was angry, steaming mad at herself for doing such a thing. She rolled up the pad and disposed of it, then started the washing machine and paused to wash her hands. She couldn't go back to Oswald to help him get dressed while her fingers stank of his orgasm - an orgasm she had _nothing_ to do with, and no right to know about, let alone to taste...

Polly didn't take the stairs back to the upper level of the house. Instead she stood there on the ground floor, inside the elevator, and drew her hand back from the Up button.

“ _You're disgusting!”_ she said under her breath as her face flushed scarlet, _“You're an animal, Polly! You filthy fucking creature! He trusts you, poor Oswald trusts you and you've just abused that trust...it's unforgivable...”_

Then she took a deep breath and jabbed at the button as the elevator began to rise, along with the flush to her cheeks as she tried to bury her anger and shame at her own filthy actions.

When she returned to the bedroom Oswald was in his chair, in his shirt and it was partly buttoned. He had left off his jacket and seeing him sitting there, knowing he was naked from the waist down, made her arousal start up all over again. She helped him to dress, and when he stood up and had his arms around her, their closeness was almost too much to bear as her gaze met his and she smiled and tried not to think lustful thoughts. Once he was dressed, they took the elevator and went back downstairs, she cooked breakfast and he sat there at the table drinking his tea while they talked about the weather and how he planned to spend some time outside again. Since she had arrived, he wanted to get out of the house more, he had told her with a smile. She had agreed that had to be a good thing, and tried not to think about the ache between her legs.

They ate breakfast together and after, Oswald had more tea and insisted she had some too. She was a coffee drinker, but the taste was growing on her as she sipped the tea – not that she wanted to think about taste after what she had done that morning... And as they were in the kitchen for breakfast, her thoughts had turned back to the night before, and she felt she ought to say something about Ed.

“Did you know Ed stopped by yesterday?”

Oswald put down his tea cup and looked at her in surprise.

“No, he said he planned to stop by, but I assumed he meant today.”

“He came by last night. I think he was worried about you letting me in on your little secret,”she explained, “But I assured him I can be trusted.”

Oswald smiled as his eyes sparkled.

“I don't doubt you can be trusted, my dear.” he said, and she felt a stab of guilt as she thought about how she had tasted his come.

“Oswald, there's something else,” she said cautiously, and he picked up on it right away, seeing the worry in her gaze as his own expression changed to one of concern.

“Is something wrong, Polly?”he asked.

“Not exactly... this is difficult – Ed hasn't done anything wrong, but I just feel a little... uneasy around him. Like, he's a little bit... _odd?_ ”

“Ed's never been normal,” Oswald replied with a shrug, then he sipped his tea again, “But you can be very sure you're safe around him, no matter what you may have read about his time spent in Arkham. He's my best friend. I'm nothing like him, we are very different people, Polly – but I can assure you that there's no need to feel unsafe around Edward.”

She nodded.

“Thanks. I just wanted to hear that from you. I feel a lot better about things now.”

Oswald fell silent as Polly drank her tea, for a moment his gaze shifted to the locked door of the cellar as memories from a dark corner of his mind briefly echoed... _Yes, Ed was definitely not normal. Even Lee didn't know the extent of his craziness, and they had been married for many years. She had no clue what had gone on in this house when Ed had first bought the place, what he had done... Oswald was no saint either, but he had standards. And there had been a time when he had put a stop to Ed's fun and games, because it was too much, even for him to stomach..._

“Oswald...”

He blinked, tearing his gaze from dark memories and the sight of that locked cellar door.

“Yes, Polly?”

“I need to go into town this morning,” she said, “Do you need anything?”

“I'll be just fine, thank you,” he told her, “I'll sit by the patio today, at the table under the shade of the tree, just leave me with my tea and I'll call you on my cell phone if I need you to hurry back - but I'm sure I'll be just fine for a couple of hours.”

She smiled as she looked across the table at him.

“I won't be gone long,” she promised.

Once Oswald was comfortable in the garden, Polly left the house, taking a drive into the city. She parked the car across the street from Saint Mary's church, then she crossed the road and entered the churchyard, walking up a sunlit path where either side old graves stood weathered by time and the elements, and found the doors, as usual, wide open. On entering the church, she saw Father Francis giving the wooden lectern a polish, and he stopped cleaning as he saw her walking up the aisle and smiled warmly. She smiled back at the tall, greying man whose voice had mostly Gotham City but also a hint of Irish in his accent. He had been so kind, such a source of support through her mothers illness, and now, she felt the need to confess her sins because surely, Oswald deserved better than her deceitful, disgusting behaviour.

“Polly,” said Francis, “It's good to see you. What can I do for you?”

Her smile faded.

“I need to make a confession.”

He saw guilt in her eyes and looked at her doubtfully.

”Last time you made a confession, you were convinced you were a bad person for hating the guy who ran the agency you used to work for. You'd done no wrong to dislike him, Polly. He paid crap wages and he leered at you and did that creepy, stroking your hand thing when he handed you your pay check! Thank heavens you took my advice and found a better job.”

“But that's what I need to talk about,” she said, “I do need confession, Father. I'm having sinful thoughts... about Oswald Cobblepot.”

Her face flushed.

Francis gave a sigh and shook his head.

“No, you don't need to confess a thing! You've done no wrong, you just need to take a walk with me, young lady. Let's go outside and talk.”

As they walked down the church aisle towards the open doors where sunlight beckoned, Polly spoke up.

“But I've been lusting after him, giving into temptation, and he knows _nothing_ about it!”

They had left the church now, and she walked with the priest along a pathway between old graves until they stopped beneath the shade of a yew tree.

“Polly,” said Francis as he leaned against a tall headstone and sunlight fell in through tree boughs, “There's something you need to understand about this city of ours... God vacated Gotham a long time ago. We both know the dark history of this city, it's steeped in blood and violence and terrible tales of monsters of human making. And there were people out there worse than Oswald in the old days! I recall the war, Oswald up there with his machine gun fighting the enemy – I fought alongside him. Yes, he has blood on his hands, he was the king of the underworld! But he was a good king. On the scale of things, in a city like this one, he was a good man who kept order and kept the peace. And he's suffered greatly – his mother was murdered by a woman named Tabitha Galavan, did you know that?”

She nodded.

“I read about it, yes.”

“And no one knows what happened to Galavan,” Francis added, “But a lot of people went missing after the city fell. Oswald went to jail for the theft of valuables and for profiting from the war, but I say without bullets, how could we have won this city back from Bane? In a place like this, there is no black and white to anything, only shades of grey, Polly. And there is no sin in loving another person. You should not fight how you feel about Oswald. He's been alone for many years and he's suffered a lot of pain. It was a miracle he survived the shooting after he left Blackgate. And if he happens to feel for you as you do for him, what's the harm in being happy together?”

“But he's older than me.”

“And why should that stop true love, if it turns out to be the real thing?” he questioned, “Don't be afraid of your feelings, Polly. And certainly, you've nothing to confess. Keep your eyes open to what this city is like – it's rotten to the core, always has been. And if in the middle of that two people find something precious, maybe that in itself is a miracle of sorts.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, “But I don't know if he would feel the same way about me. It's too soon to know.”

“Then give it time and you'll find out,” Francis said with a smile.

She nodded.

“I'll do that, thank you for talking to me today.”

“Any time, Polly,” he told her, and then as she turned and walked away he stood there leaning on that old gravestone and watched her leave as the thought crossed his mind that surely there had to be some good in this city somewhere, if in a place like this, love could possibly flourish for Polly and Oswald.

Polly arrived back at the house to find the front door open. That made her feel instantly uneasy, until she crossed the hallway to hear the voice of Ed Nygma coming from the front room.

“And it's a good thing I stopped by, or you would have been stuck outside for hours!” he exclaimed.

Polly walked into the room, looking from Ed to Oswald, as alarm registered on her face to see Oswald holding a handkerchief to the side of his head. As he took it away, a small cut glistened red.

“Oswald, what happened?”

“I fell,” he said, looking at her with apology in his gaze, I tried to get up and walk to the kitchen – it didn't go as planned.”

“He's supposed to have his cane nearby at all times in case he wants to take a few steps,” Ed told her.

“I didn't know that!” Polly exclaimed, and as she looked to Oswald, he shrugged.

“I hate walking. It hurts. But sometimes, I like to try.”

“At least I know now,” Polly replied.

“It's not your fault,” Ed told her, “Oswald _should_ have mentioned it!”

“Polly, would you make some tea for me, please?” Oswald asked, and she went into the kitchen knowing he had said that purely to get her out of the way while he spoke to Ed alone. The kitchen door was open and as she set about making the tea, their voices carried along the hall and she couldn't help but listen:

“At least you're not hurt,” Ed told him, “I've checked you over, thanks to my medical knowledge I can confirm it's a minor cut and you have no sign of concussion. But please don't do that again. You scared the hell out of me!”

“I'll go upstairs and rest when you've gone,” Oswald replied.

“And don't forget, I'm taking you to the hospital tomorrow to see the specialist. Then we'll know if you're recovering well or if you need more surgery on your back.”

“I'm dreading that,” Oswald replied.

Polly had been making the tea. She stopped, standing there in the kitchen as she blinked away tears, aching in her heart for poor Oswald who might be facing more pain to fix his damaged spine. Then Oswald spoke again.

“By the way, Ed, I got a call from the company that supplies to booze to the lounge. You screwed up on the order so I made a few calls to set it right, adjusted the order and paid for the additional costs... you almost left the bar without alcohol!”

Ed gave a sigh.

“I've been busy with Lee and the kids... wait... you did _what?_ ”

Anxiety had just crept into his voice.

Polly stepped away from the kitchen counter, leaning towards the open door as she listened harder:

“I had to step in. You screwed up, Ed! That club is all we have! We can't afford mistakes!”

“And the alcohol supplier is owned by Sofia Falcone, who owns half the fucking city since she and Tetch took over to run the underworld together! Think about it, Oswald! You're supposed to be incapable of doing anything, that's why there's been no more attempts on your life - and you just called her fucking company to set right MY order that should have been handled by ME?”

“It was a one off, Ed. Stop worrying. The business comes first.”

“And if Sofia finds out you're the one who set the order straight, what then?”

“She won't, I'm sure she has other priorities,”Oswald said dismissively.

“You'd better hope you're right about that!” Ed snapped anxiously.

He wasn't the only one who felt concerned. As she stood there listening to the conversation, she felt a fierce protectiveness rising up within her:

_If Oswald was in danger, she would put a stop to that._

_She would kill for Oswald if she had to..._

Were the held had _that_ come from?

She gave a gasp, then shook her head, wishing she could wipe that thought from her mind.

But it lingered, as if it was surely the only right thing to do. She loved him, she could feel it growing in her heart daily and if anyone tried to hurt him – they would pay the price for it!

_Maybe this was what love felt like._

_Polly didn't know._

_She had never been in love before..._

Poll worried for Oswald for the rest of the day. It was enough to make her lose sleep at night, too, as she thought about his hospital appointment and hoped he wouldn't have to go through more pain.

Ed came over just after nine am.

Polly had helped Ozzie get dressed that morning and he had spotted the look in her eyes and said, _I'm sure all will be well. Please try not to worry about me._

“ _But I do,”_ she had confessed, and that was the deciding moment when she suddenly became a lot closer to Oswald. He was sitting there in his chair, dressed in a dark suit with his purple streaked hair spiked, and a look of fondness reflected in his gaze as he realised just how worried she was.

“Oh Polly, please don't get upset!” he said, and he reached for her and she welcomed his embrace as they hugged.

Oswald gave her a gentle squeeze, at the same time inhaling the scent of her hair and cherishing the feel of her soft skin as her cheek brushed with his, then as they let go and she stepped back, he smiled up at her.

“I'll be back by lunch time,” he said, and then he turned his chair around and wheeled it down the hallway, meeting Ed at the open front door.

Polly waited until they were gone, then she went outside and stood alone in the sunlit garden. She tried to focus on the beauty of the place, but it was hard to do that through eyes blurred with tears. Her thoughts would remain with Oswald until he came back. _And then what? She couldn't just come out with it and tell him how she felt, she barely knew him..._

She began to walk down the path that cut through the lawn, leading eventually to the old brick wall at the back of the garden. She reached the barred gate and found it locked, then walked on following the wall until she reached the other end of it, where, in the shade of a tall tree, she saw some bricks had crumbled. Scrambling up and over and jumping down to the other side felt like she had just dared herself to do something crazy, and as she landed, she saw she was in the middle of a pathway and all around, plants and shrubs had long ago been left to ramble. She had narrowly missed a long vine with nasty spikes that had sprouted from a bush and beside it, was another bush covered in blackberries. Butterflies flitted about the place, bees buzzed around flowers, enjoying the fact that this place had been left to ramble and was now a gift to nature itself. And there was _another_ smell here, sickly sweet and something akin to the scent of the graveyard... It was strongest over by a patch of earth left damp by recent overnight rainfall, in a corner where the weeds were sparse and the area was plunged into shadow where the brick wall, in its state of decay, was leaning a little, casting the area in perpetual gloom. Then she saw the damp and rotting leaves that had piled up over the seasons, this corner was always in darkness, always harbouring the dead leaves and everything got damp after the rain. A fallen tree limb was nearby, rotten and decaying...

“I shouldn't be here...” she murmured as she looked about the place and walked on back into sunlight, then spotting a fountain in the middle of the over grown shrubbery as she tried to picture this place as it once was when the garden had been tamed.

The fountain was round and had a stone flower in its centre where water had once flowed out. She walked over patchy sun scorched earth and then stepped over a cluster of nettles and reached the fountain, where she stood to look inside and see filth and many years of drying rainfall and dead leaves inside it. She wondered if Oswald would like this place tended, it would be a more private area where he could sit on a peaceful day surrounded by the wall and the hedges and shrubs. The place would look so much better cleaned up... Something hard was under her shoe as she stood there by the fountain, and she stepped back to see the end of a rusted key jutting out from the soil. She reached down, raked at the dirt and pulled it free with a flurry of earth as a set of keys jangled on a key ring that was decorated with a diamanté question mark. Some of the stones were missing and the gold had tarnished showing silver beneath and the ring and keys were very rusted, clearly, it had been there for many years... Polly studied the keys, seeing some had tags protected by laminate, one said _kitchen,_ and another was labelled, _cellar..._

_She had found the old keys to the house, and the key to the cellar door?_

She gave the keys a shake as they jangled heavy as she brushed off the last of the damp earth that had covered them, then she put them in her pocket as she wondered, why would they be out here? Had someone simply thrown out an old set of keys before the locks had been changed? Or had they been buried here for another reason?

Polly hurried back the way she had come in, climbing over the broken wall and out to the other side, then she paused in the shade of a tree to brush dirt and dust from her dress before heading back to the house.

_She had a key to the cellar._

Maybe it wasn't the right key now, but at one time, this key had fit the lock, and perhaps, if it had never been replaced, it still did.

_There was only one way to find out..._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Those keys felt heavy in her hand as Polly walked into the kitchen and stood there looking to the door of the cellar:

_How many years had that door been locked?_

She looked down at the keys, weighing them flat in the palm of her hand as she pushed aside the faded diamanté question mark with the missing stones and looked at each key in turn:

Some were small keys, others larger. It must have been a whole set to the house, back in the old days...

_Why bury it in the walled garden?_

She lifted the cellar key and the rest of the keys swung dull and rusty as she made her way over to the door. She paused, looking up at the clock on the wall, remembering Oswald had his hospital appointment and would not be back for a while. She slid the key into the lock. It was an uncomfortable feeling, the guilt and the overwhelming need to know... Polly felt as if she ought to be admitting to this and saying sorry to Oswald, he had a right to know what she was doing under his roof – especially when Ed had been so emphatic about leaving the damned cellar alone...

She gave the key a twist.

_It jammed._

“Shit!” she whispered, and she turned it back and forth as rust ground against a dry lock stiffened by time.

Polly left the key in the lock and looked about the kitchen... Would WD40 work? She knew little about maintenance, and nothing about locks...

She searched the cleaning cupboard and found nothing. Then she wondered if there was anything useful in the garden shed – she was sure she had seen one at the back of the house, it was small and she had seen tools hanging up in the window, but that looked to be purely for garden maintenance.

“Oil...” she muttered, and started to search the food cupboards.

As she took out the bottle of olive oil, she wondered if this was a crazy idea, but anything had to be worth a shot and she wanted to do this quickly, while she had the time to spare. She took out the key, opened up the bottle, lined it up with the lock and gave a small squeeze then stepped back, looking at the mess on the lock and the trail of oil running down the door. Polly tried the key again. It turned a little further and jammed again. She drew out the key, deciding to try a different tactic, and held the key over the sink while she poured some oil over it, then she put the bottle back in the cupboard and set the key aside and washed out the sink to remove all trace of the oil. She paused to wipe the excess from the key, then she went back over to the cellar door and put it back in the lock. She turned the key again, left and right, once, then twice.

_There was a click as the lock opened up._

She drew her hand back, taking in a slow breath as the door shifted ajar, creaking on old hinges. Polly reached for the switch on the wall and the room beyond the door dimly lit up. She left the key in the door and pushed it wide open, seeing an old wooden stairway. Spiders had made their webs on the wall beside her and in the drop between the handrail and the steps, here and there threads shone transparent as they scuttled about. The whole staircase looked as dangerous as Ed had suggested, and she cautiously tried the hand rail, then went down one step at a time, lifting her shoe from the creaking steps that groaned and visibly moved, finding firmer ground closer to the edge as she carefully made her way down towards the floor, that looked to be solid concrete. It would be a nasty fall from here, that was on her mind as she took the final four steps and made it to the bottom.

She looked around:

_It was just a cellar._

The room was wide, at one time an old boiler had been in use down here, but now the house had a modern heating system it sat dark with its metal door firmly shut. The brick work was exposed down here, and on one side of the room was a large wine rack, there was nothing in it but on the floor there were a few empty bottles - of champagne if she wasn't mistaken by the dusty old labels – that lay discarded on the floor. There was a table on the other side of the room, a lamp was sat on it, and a deck of playing cards. Set next to the cards were two old, dust covered books and going by the lettering on the spines, they were riddle collections...

_This was it?_

Ed didn't want her to come down here to see the lower level to find his cards that suggested possibly nights gambling with friends, or maybe that he stole a few riddles sometimes from books? There was nothing here to explain his emphasis on leaving this place alone... Just a wine rack, a table and the stuff on it, and a big, faded rug that covered the middle of the room.

She stepped back, looking down at the rug with its Chinese patterns in faded shades of red and gold. Then she walked across it, and the concrete floor gave way to something else that creaked like... _floorboards?_

She stepped back, then tested it again with her shoe, hearing the same kind of creak she had heard when negotiating those old steps. Polly looked to the stairway and the daylight above, she had time to do this, and maybe this would be the only chance... She started to roll back the rug as she wondered, had Ed stashed something in a secret hiding place? Maybe something valuable from his days as Riddler? Perhaps diamonds from bank job, or a strong box full of cash... She had no intention stealing anything, she just wanted to know and now, it was too late to back out after getting this far...

She stopped rolling the rug. She was looking at a large trap door. Polly took a deep breath and grasped the thin metal handle and gave it a tug, staggering backwards as it yawned wide open on groaning hinges and as it came down, she had to jump back and let go as it crashed to the floor, sending a flurry of dust upward as the blow reverberated through the concrete floor. Then she stood there, staring down into darkness:

A wide flight of stone steps went downward. There was a metal hand rail both sides of the stairway, and as she took a cautious step inside, then another and another, she saw a light switch on the wall and pressed it. Down below, the concrete floor was visible as a much brighter light came on. There were no spiders or traces of webs down here. The walls either side of the stairway had been painted white and this sub basement level had been closed off so long, and had been so well maintained in the past, that all that had covered it was a thin layer of dust...

She reached the bottom of the stairway. Looking right ahead, she saw the other side of the large room. The walls were tiled white, there were cupboards lining that area and there was a sink, too. Then she turned her head and stared at the sight of what she could only think of as bondage items, torture instruments... all laid out on a bench, and some hung on the wall, making it look like something out of an s and m dungeon, but a _nasty_ one... She didn't want to turn around and see the rest of the room, but she did, slowly, her heart racing as she tried to breathe slow and stop herself from panicking. On the other side of the room was a table, a metal table with lights above it , and it looked like something out of a hospital operating room. More cupboards were on the wall and these doors had sliding glass. Inside were vials of liquids and bottles of pills and there was a trolley next to the table, partly covered, but she could see the surgical instruments laid out on it, dusty and left as if someone had been doing some terrible stuff down here and one day, had just walked out and locked the place up never to return... She turned to the space behind her as her eyes went wide and she gave a gasp as ice shot through her blood at a horrible sight:

_It was a cage._

_A big cage, big enough for... a person?_

She saw chains and metal restraints inside the cage, but no sign of bedding or food or any evidence that someone had been kept here once. It was just an empty cage... She felt mildly sick as she stepped closer, cautiously running her hands over the bars. The cage had been brought down here and welded together, she could see the marks where the thing had been fused, it would have been a hell of a job to take it apart again, maybe that was why all this stuff was still down here... It hadn't been touched for many years, at least she had the consolation of knowing this nasty time capsule had been abandoned long ago... around the time Ed moved out?

_Was this Ed's doing?_

_Had he built himself a torture chamber in this sub basement?_

She looked about the room again as she blinked back tears, then she crossed herself, feeling sure that evil had once dwelt here... but Oswald couldn't have known about this, he didn't move into this house until he had left jail, and in the old days, this had been Ed's home before he married Lee and had a family...

_Maybe that was why he didn't want to live here._

_The house was beautiful, but it had a former torture chamber beneath it and that was no place to raise children and he said, he loved his kids..._

Suddenly she just wanted to get out.

Polly hurried back up the stairs, breathless as she scrambled out and then stood up, it took effort to lift the hatch once more and as it closed with a heavy thud, she breathed a little easer, knowing that horrible place was sealed away once more.

She rolled the rug back into place, breathed another relieved sigh and then made quickly for the stairs, keeping to the edge as she held on to the rail, getting closer to the place where daylight beckoned and then she could close the door, lock it and... then what? Oswald didn't need the stress of knowing what was deep below this house. He had been through enough. _Oh God, she could never feel remotely comfortable around Ed again. Maybe this was why he had made her feel so uneasy, perhaps she had sensed this before she knew..._ She reached the top step. Her shoe slipped on a slick of olive oil and she gave a gasp as she stumbled, her knee hitting the stair as she clutched at the rail, her elbow scraping old wood as a splinter bit in. She clung to the rail for a moment, breathing hard, then she pulled herself upright and made her way out of the cellar on shaking legs.

Closing that door and locking it once more came as a huge relief. Then she went upstairs, hid the keys in her room and went to the bathroom, where she drew out the splinter and then found antiseptic cream in the bathroom cabinet.

She looked in the mirror at her pale, shaken reflection, noticed her dress was dirty and went back to her room to change into another, then she sat down on her bed and took some deep breaths, deciding she could not say a word about the sub basement and what she had found - Oswald was unsteady, he was still recovering from the shooting, his recovery would be long and he didn't need a shock like this...

An hour later, the front door opened. Polly heard several voices, and the running of small feet as a woman called out, _“Quinn, Lola, don't run!”_

Polly went downstairs to see a gathering in the wide hallway:

Oswald was in his wheelchair, smiling as he looked up at Ed and the two women who stood beside him. He turned his head and saw her standing there and as she walked over, he introduced them.

“Polly, this Ed's wife Lee, and this is his eldest daughter Pearl Nygma.”

Lee smiled warmly as she shook hands with Polly.

“I've heard so much about you! It's so good to know Oswald has someone so caring to help him out.”

“What have you been saying about me?” she replied with a smile as Oswald looked at her and smiled back as his eyes sparkled.

“Only praise you deserve, my dear,” he assured her.

“It's nice to meet you Polly,” said Pearl, unlike Lee, who was dressed in jeans and a light summer top, Pearl was wearing a pale cream business suit and an ID badge that said she was _Doctor_ Pearl Nygma. Her skin was golden brown and her eyes were dark and shone softly with warmth. Her jet back hair was styled in a bob and as she spoke up, she revealed something Polly had not been aware of:

“I'm Ed's adopted daughter. You probably know my father was absolved of all blame for the Haven explosion back in wartime?”

Polly nodded. She had read about how Ed had been implanted with a chip that had left him with no free will, and how he had been used to blow up Haven, killing hundreds. It had been clear the incident was not Ed's fault, and as Pearl went on to explain more, all thoughts of that creepy dungeon below the house slipped away as a surprising fact was revealed:  
“I was a baby at the time of of the explosion. I was orphaned by the Haven incident. After the war, Ed adopted me.”

Pearl smiled as she put an arm around her father and gave him a fond hug.

“And Father has supported me all the way through school, college and med school and now I'm a doctor.”

“Today she was my doctor,” Oswald added.

“And you'll be pleased to know Oswald doesn't need any more surgery for his back problem,” Pearl added, “He just needs to get out of that chair and start using his cane again, don't you, Uncle Ozzie!”

Oswald reluctantly nodded.

“I suppose its good news, but walking is painful.”

“You just have to keep working at it,”Lee reminded him, and then as a little girl with Lee's dark hair ran back down the hallway, she came to a stop in front of her parents and looked up at them.

”Quinn got a spider!”

“We rarely see spiders in this house!” Oswald said in surprise.

Polly thought about how she had left that cellar door open whilst exploring, and said nothing.

Ed smiled as his eyes shone with love as he looked down at his daughter.

”Well I'm sure it's harmless. Quinn loves spiders and he knows how to safely catch them!”

“We should be leaving now, I'm sure Oswald needs to rest,” Lee reminded him, “I'll take Lola back to the car.

“Okay honey, I'll see you in a minute,” Ed replied, and paused to kiss her cheek, she glanced back and smiled at him as they exchanged a look of deepest love, then she led the little girl out of the house and across the driveway towards the car.

“ _I got it, Father!”_

Quinn Nygma was a couple of years older than little Lola, and the image of his dad with his neatly combed brown hair and thick rimmed glasses. He smiled as he held up a jar. Inside it, the spider darted about.

“Oh! What have you got there, Quinn?” Ed said keenly, and he took the jar and held it up.

“Parasteatoda tepidariorum... common house spider. Not dangerous. Shall we let him go outside?”

Quinn nodded.

Ed ruffled his son's hair fondly.

“Good boy, always look after small creatures, son. They haven't done anything to harm us.”

“So we don't harm them,” Quinn added as he followed Ed outside.

Just then, Pearl spoke up.

“Polly, I need to talk to you and Oswald about the next phase of his recovery.”

“Pearl,” Lee called from the car, “We're leaving now.”

“Okay,” she called back, and waved from the open front door.

“We should go through to my study to talk,” Oswald said, then he turned his chair in the direction of the study and began to head towards it.

Oswald positioned his chair behind his desk as Polly sat on a comfortable arm chair and Pearl took a seat.

“Basically, it's all good news,” she said, looking from Oswald to Polly, “Uncle Ozzie is showing signs of further recovery and he can get back on his feet, but he needs to work on it more. I've prescribed some painkillers that will help, and he needs to use his cane every day, he will have bad days when he can't face walking, but it's going to improve. The same with your continence issue” she added, looking to Oswald again, “You're recovering much better than expected and I can't say it will disappear overnight, but you should eventually have little trouble with leaks, you just have to be patient with it. And you don't need any further treatment for your spinal injury. It's healing, and it's a long process. But there's a lot of room for improvement.”

Oswald looked fondly at Pearl.

“And hearing that good news from you made it even better,” he said, “And now I must ask you something – have you managed to get the deposit together for that new apartment you wanted?”

“I had car repairs to pay last month and I don't like asking Father for money, he's got a big family with Lee and the kids are always needing things... I'll get there, I just need a few more months, don't worry about it, Uncle Ozzie.”

“I don't worry,” Oswald said, and he took out his check book and picked up a pen and began to write a check, “But if I can help, I insist on doing so.”

He tore off the check and handed it to her. She looked down at the amount and then back at Oswald.

“This is too much -”

He smiled at her fondly.

“Nothing is ever too much for you, my dear. I've always done all I can to help and I always will, you deserve it. And today you gave me the best news I could wish for, so take this as a thank you.”

She got up and hugged Oswald tightly. As he let go, love shone in his gaze as he looked at Pearl.

“Any time you need any help, always come to me.”

“I love you so much, Uncle Ozzie.”

“I love you too, Pearl,” he said softly.

Then Oswald wheeled his chair out of the study and Polly walked along side him to the front door, where he hugged Pearl again, then she left and he closed the front door and turned back to Polly.

“I've adored Pearl since the day I first saw her. That sweet, innocent child who was caught up in such tragedy... and of course, when it became known Ed had adopted her, any risk of him being sent to jail for past crimes were wiped out – Jim Gordon saw to that. He has a family with his wife Barbara, and he could see the change in Ed. Becoming a father was his salvation. It turned his life around. Then he married Lee and they went on to have more children – I've never seen him so happy, so at peace.”

“Do you think it saved his sanity?” she asked, hoping that question didn't seem too deep.

“I believe it certainly pulled him back from an abyss,” Oswald replied, and then he changed the subject.

“I know Pearl said I should start walking again, but can we start on that tomorrow?”

Polly smiled.

“I don't see why not,” she told him, then she got behind him and wheeled his chair through the house, heading for the garden, so he could sit in the shade while she made tea, and then they would talk for hours as she simply enjoyed his company.

_The days passed by._

All thoughts of that horrible sub basement hovered somewhere at the back of her mind, but she said nothing about it. The door was locked, the entrance in the cellar was hidden and no one would know she had been down there. Oswald certainly didn't need to know, he was taking his painkillers every day and taking Pearls advice, managing a few steps with his cane, with Polly's support, on a daily basis now.

And Polly and Oswald talked a lot. They shared meals together, they sat together in the garden and sometimes, when he was aching and his leg was painful, she would take him upstairs to rest and give him a massage, something that was so soothing and gave him such relief that he would often slip into a deep sleep afterwards.

And they were getting closer. Oswald's fondness for Polly was growing and now she no longer worried about hiding her blush when their eyes met and their gaze lingered. Oswald was in the habit of reaching for her hand sometimes when they talked, and when he did that, she never wanted him to let go.

Oswald's confidence was growing in a way he couldn't tell Polly. He had thoughts of her every morning, his cock was getting harder and he was lasting longer now – unless he let his imagination run too wild, then he lost control. Polly had spent many nights with her hand between her legs, whispering _Oswald_ as she gasped and hit her peak. Both longed for each other, but neither said it aloud.

Polly had not forgotten the advice Father Francis had given her. The more she got to know Oswald, the more she saw beyond his reputation from the days of old – he had been a poor son of a single parent immigrant family, who had struggled through his childhood with dreams of becoming successful in Gotham – and in those days, the only route to such power and wealth, was the underworld. Oswald had told her the stories of every scar on his body, and of his pain at the loss of his Mother. He had wept as he told her how he had tried to save her, only to have her die in his arms, stabbed to death by Tabitha Galavan. He had spoken of his fondness for Ed, and when she had asked how crazy Ed really was, Oswald had paused for thought then simply said:

“Ed is a complicated person. There were times in the past when he was easily the most dangerous criminal in this city. As for the rest, his state of mind...” he paused as he shook his head, “I can not condemn him, only pity him that his poor soul is so tormented and was driven to such...I'll just say, he did terrible things many years ago. I too have killed people, Polly – but in the name of maintaining the peace in the underworld. Mine were gangland killings. As for Ed...” he paused again, shaking his head, “I am thankful love has let some light into his sick mind. If he had not adopted Pearl and then married Lee and had a family, I don't think he would be free now. Think he would be in Arkham, left there to rot as a case that's incurable. But love turned that around for him. Love has great power. I used to think it was perhaps a terrible weakness but time has showed me differently – it can can be miraculous for some.”

“And what about you?” she asked softly as they sat beneath the shade of the tree with tea on the table as the breeze shifted sighing though the boughs above them. Oswald paused for thought.

“I have been alone for a very long time,” he concluded, “I spent years supporting Mother, then after her death, I was on a ruthless climb to become the king of Gotham. After that, it was always a power struggle to keep what had fought for. My whole life was about being the Penguin.”

“There's still time,” she said with a smile.

Surprise registered in his gaze as he wondered if she meant that the way he hoped she did... her gaze was still on his, and his heart skipped a beat.

“And that is a very lovely thought,” he concluded with a smile, then he reached for his tea once more.

Later that afternoon, Oswald went back upstairs to lie down. Polly took him up to his room via the elevator and then helped him to undress, then he rested on top of the covers in a thin dressing gown that he soon opened up as she left the room, giving a sigh as cool air shifted in through the open window. His back was aching, but the pain in his leg was more bearable since he had started to use the cane more. Now he could walk short distances – although stairs were still a challenge he didn't feel able to over come, but he had the elevator.

And while he was lying there, with his own door ajar, he heard a sound vaguely carry from down the hall:

_A sigh._

He listened, then heard a low, partly suppressed moan... He closed his dressing gown and sat up, braced himself for the pain and leaned on his cane as he stood up. After a few seconds, he had his balance because Pearl was right, the more he practised, the easer walking became. Oswald slowly and quietly limped out of the bedroom, pausing to listen again. The sound was coming from Polly's room, and her door was wide open...

Polly had gone straight to her room, stripped off her dress and was sat there recovering from the heat of the day, she had just unhooked her bra and as she sat on the end of the bed, her legs were open as she stroked at the damp patch visible through her white cotton panties. She had thought about leaving underwear off in this heat, but she was always so turned on around Oswald, she was afraid of the scent of her damp thighs becoming known, or worse – leaving a stain on her skirt. Now she didn't have to worry about anything as she stroked again at the wet heat between her legs, where the fabric was becoming soaked and through it, she saw the outline of swollen lips parted as the flesh within engorged. She stroked again at the wet fabric, giving a sigh.

“ _Oswald...”_ she whispered.

He had reached the doorway, he saw her there on the bed, her legs spread as she touched herself through her panties whispering his name. His eyes went wide as she sensed she wasn't alone and looked up sharply. She gave a gasp.

“No, please, Polly, don't stop,” he said softly, and as he limped over to her and sat beside her she froze, her face flushing at the shame of being caught. But Oswald's voice was soft as his touch as he reached out a slightly shaking hand, placing it on her thigh as he sat beside her.

“I knew... I _suspected_ we were very drawn to each other. But I had no idea about this...”

His gaze had met hers. His heart was pounding as he spoke again, realising that perhaps, his dreams could come true. Clearly she needed him, desperately.

“I desire you too, my dear,” he said tenderly, “And it's quite alright if you want to do something about that.”

Polly didn't think or speak, there was no room as emotion washed over her and she reached for him, then found herself in a warm embrace as their lips touched and they began to kiss deeply. She ran her fingers through his hair as he ran his gentle touch over her shoulders, and as her bra fell away, his hand cupped her breast while he broke off from their kiss to take the other in his mouth, sucking on a hardened nipple that was cherry red as she gave a moan of bliss. Her hand desperately reached downward as she squeezed her thighs together, and that was when Oswald took control.

“Lie back and take your panties off, Polly.”

She shifted up the bed, stripped off her underwear and as Oswald took in the sight of her wet, swollen, shaved pussy, he felt an ache in his hardening cock. She was so swollen up, her clit was deep pink and shiny and as she spread her legs it was easily visible, swollen out of its hood and begging for climax. He drove her _this_ wild? Just knowing that was enough to dash away all his insecurities. Oswald shifted up the bed, pausing to untie his robe as the fabric fell away and she caught sight of his large, solid cock.

“I'm a virgin, I've never...”

“Shh,” Oswald said softly as his fingertips traced over a smooth, shaven pussy that was wide open and begging for release, “We won't do that today, I don't currently have any protection, so I won't disrespect you like that, Polly. But I definitely need to do something about _this_....” he slid a finger over her clitoris and watched as she gave a moan and her clit and the small, neat inner labia below it twitched sharply. He had never seen a woman spread open before him and so swollen with need for him, not like this, and it was beautiful. Oswald laid beside her on the bed, her head was on the pillow, he was on his side, eye level with her parted thighs.

“ _I like to be a little naughty,”_ he whispered, and she gave a shiver as her clit ached as she felt the heat of his breath on her sex, _“Talk dirty for me, be filthy, it helps to keep me hard... tell me what you want me to do, Polly...”_

As he said that he gently opened up her slit, admiring the sight of her swollen sex.

“ _I want you to...”_

“ _Say it,”_ Oswald whispered, _“Be filthy...”_

She looked down at him as he held her open, her eyes glazed with desire.

“ _Lick it for me... lick my cunt, Oswald!”_

“I'll fucking _eat_ your cunt...” he murmured, and his mouth was on her, sucking and then teasing and lapping at her clit as she moaned out loud as she raked her fingers through raven black hair shot through with purple. He circled her clit with his tongue and then lapped at it again, this time much harder. Polly felt the flush spread like fire through her body as her face grew red, she was sweating and writhing and he was relentless in his attention as he sucked and licked and then licked more firmly again, harder and faster.

“ _OSWALD!”_

Polly screamed his name, grabbing at his hair as she thrust upwards and pushed his face on to her throbbing sex. She gave another moan as her body throbbed one last time, and he gave her clit a last, firm press as he felt it throb again, wetness was running out of her but he didn't want to put two fingers inside her no mater how much she would have liked it, when she was penetrated there, it would be by his cock, when he properly took her virginity - and he wanted nothing to spoil that for her as she drew back and then shifted up the bed, where he turned on his back with his robe open.

She didn't need to be encouraged. Polly reached for his long, thick cock and stroked it gently as Oswald closed his eyes and gave a gasp.

“ _Oh Polly! Oh yes, make me come! Do it, touch me, suck me off!”_

Polly kissed down a body marked with scars, a legacy of his battle to rise to the top in the underworld and the legacy of the shooting two years before. She kissed slowly down his body, then took him into her mouth, sucking carefully, taking care not to choke because Oswald was well endowed and although she had some sexual experience, this was her first time with a big cock. He was looking down at her, gasping as he lay there, moaning softly as he begged her not to stop.

“ _Oh fuck yes... suck it, Polly, suck me dry...”_

She slid his cock up and down as her lips gripped him gently, and she kept on sucking until he gave a sharp gasp and her mouth was flooded with a burst of hot come. She swallowed it, and could still taste his come in her mouth as she rejoined him and they embraced and shared a kiss. Oswald was still sweating and he was shaking, too, as he pulled her closer.

“I am in love with you, Polly,” he said softly, “And I'm so happy this has happened, please tell me you feel the same!”

Love filled her gaze as she gave her reply.

“I love you too, Ozzie!”

He choked off a sob of joy as he kissed her again, then they lay together on her bed, embracing as the breeze blew in to cool the heat from their bodies. And while Oswald was overjoyed that love had finally come back into his life, Polly's thoughts had turned to the cellar and all she had seen as she blinked away tears he could not see as she lay in his arms with her head on his chest:

_How could she begin this new life with Oswald, this wonderful life that held such promise for the future, if she could not be honest with him?_

_She would have to tell him about the sub basement._

_She didn't want to, but she couldn't start this relationship with dishonesty._

_He had to be told..._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!  
> I hope you are enjoying this fic.  
> In this chapter, more is revealed about the (many) secrets of what's happened at The Riddle House.  
> And heres a warning:  
> Expect some horror/mentions of torture in this chapter. I am a horror writer so my darkness levels are pretty deep! I don't expect anyone to be traumatised but its just a small warning I thought I would give. Can't say more as I don't want to give away spoilers.  
> Enjoy the fic!

Chapter 5

His touch was light as the breeze that came in through the open window. His voice was gentle and soft as raw silk. As he stroked her hair and they lay together on the bed, Polly smiled at the sound of Oswald's voice:

“ _You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Polly. I can never pretend I've lived a good life or been a good man, and I certainly hold no claim to being deserving of such happiness. But I am thankful for it. I never would have imagined after all I've been through that anyone would look at me twice, let alone hand me their heart... and the fact that it's you makes this more than wonderful, I can't tell you how happy I am, my love.”_

She met his gaze, his black and purple hair was messed up from an afternoon in her arms, then some time spent downstairs as they had dinner together, then later, they had gone back to bed – this time to Oswald's room. It had been a night of soft kisses and gentle caressing. Oswald had made her come again, but when she had tried to return the favour he had reached for her hand, drawing it from his groin and up to his lips, where he kissed the back of it and said softly, _“As much as I would love to, I fear I won't be able to withstand more tonight, my dear.”_

He had held her in the fading light and spoken softly to her, as insecurity briefly flickered in his gaze and he spoke of his injury cased by the bullet to his back as he told her he feared love making might be a disappointment when it did happen. She had kissed him and promised him it wouldn't matter, and hearing those words chased away his fears as he lay beside her, still partly hard at the thought that she wouldn't reject him if his difficulties got in the way of a full sexual relationship. She had kissed every inch of him, even lingering on the scars to his back from the bullet and the surgery to repair the damage, she had told him he was beautiful inside and out, and she loved him heart and soul. For the second time that day, Oswald had quietly cried in her arms. Now as they lay together by the morning light, they shared a smile of understanding as Oswald knew no more words were needed to convey the doubts and fears in his heart – she had silenced them all.

That morning they got up together. Then Polly suggested a drive into the city and Oswald had agreed. But then he told her every time he got into a car he feared a hail of bullets. She kissed him fondly and reminded him the shooting was two years ago and he would be just fine. Then they drove off to spend some time parked by the river as they watched the water flow and held hands, a simple enough gesture but one that was worth a thousand words. Oswald felt content for the first time in many years, and for Polly, it felt as if she had found the missing piece of her heart, the piece she had been searching for, her soul mate, the one she was destined to be with for the rest of her days. She rested her head on his shoulder as he turned on the radio and soft music filled the car. They kissed like crazy until Oswald broke off from it and chuckled saying he felt like a love struck teenager. She had laughed too as he paused to glance in the mirror to run his fingers through his hair, teasing up his spikes as their making out had messed it up. On the way home, they stopped off at a pharmacy and she had gone inside and bought some condoms. As she returned to the car and handed them to him, Oswald had put the packet into his pocket and tensed a little.

“Let's hope I'm up to this... with my back and my leg and my doubts concerning how long I can actually last,” he reminded her.

She looked into his eyes.

“That doesn't matter. I love you, I just want to be with you. It doesn't matter if we can't do this tonight, or tomorrow... I'm happy just to be with you, Ozzie.”

“I'm very glad to hear that,” he admitted with a smile, and then she started up the car and they headed back home.

The rest of the day was spent together, with Oswald going through old photographs and taking about the old days. He shared many pictures of himself as a boy, and talked fondly of memories of his mother. Polly talked about her own childhood and her late mother too. They both reached the conclusion their parents would have approved, Gertrud would have loved Polly, as Audrey would have loved Oswald. Later on they had dinner together in the dining room, by candle light. The dinner was interrupted by Ed calling Oswald to say he was out in the woods, he had taken Lee and the kids camping that weekend, and they were about to eat around the campfire and then tell ghost stories. He heard Lee laugh in the background as she said something about being sure there would be riddles told too, and the kids would have fun solving them. Oswald told them to have a wonderful weekend and then ended the call, saying nothing about the new development with Polly - that was something he preferred to tell him face to face...

As he ended the call, they had just finished dinner. Oswald was off the painkillers, for now. He was limping heavily and slowly with his cane and he still suffered small leaks, his incontinence wasn't going to go away, it would always be there, but to a lesser degree. Since he had become more active, he was rapidly suffering less because of it. But he was still feeling nervous about bed and the prospect of making love fully. He had taken his jacket off on returning home and left it draped over the back of the sofa, and it was still there, with the condoms in his pocket. He tried not to think about bed time as he ended the call and looked through candlelight at Polly.

“Ed's taken his family out to the woods, they often go camping, the kids love it. He won't be back until Monday.”

“That's nice,” she said, forcing a smile as she held back on all she suspected she knew about his best friend.

“He loves to spend time with his family,” Oswald added, “It's so good to see him happy. Marrying Lee was the best decision he ever made.”

And suddenly, as they sat there at the table, as she looked into his eyes, she could hold it back no longer.

“ _Oswald, I need to tell you something...”_

There was a brief look of fear in his gaze, as rejection crossed his mind along with every other heartache he had ever suffered in a life cursed without lasting love.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, not with us, it's nothing like that but I've done something I was told not to do and I found something and I'm sorry... _please forgive me!_ ”

As she said that, she reached across the table and briefly grasped his hand.

“I must tell you this, I can't keep anything from you, I love you!”

As she let go of his hand, Oswald looked at her intently.

“What is this about, Polly? What could you have possibly done that I could not forgive?”

She took a deep breath.

“I wandered into the walled garden... I found keys buried by the fountain, I found the key to the cellar and I opened it, Oswald. I went down there and...” her voice dropped, _“I found the sub basement....”_

For a moment silence passed between them as the candlelight glowed and Oswald's eyes widened as his jaw briefly dropped. He looked back at her with sadness reflecting in his gaze as he began to speak. This was difficult, but perhaps, it was better said now, so that she understood and they had no secrets. After all, this was not his secret and he had never wanted to hand this to another, let alone the one he loved, but she had found it, and so, he needed to explain...

“Oh I see,” he looked down at the table for a moment shaking his head as too many terrible memories flooded back to him, and then he drew in a breath and looked up, meeting her gaze.

“This is not a pleasant tale, Polly. But please believe me when I say, I had no part in any of it. I found out much, much later...”

“Found out, what?” she said in a hushed voice.

Oswald paused, he looked to the portrait on the wall of his late mother, and then back at Polly.

“Not here,” he replied, and he put out the candles and got up stiffly, giving a hiss of pain as his back and knee hurt in unison. They went through to the front room and before he spoke again, Oswald poured them both a stiff drink.

As she sat there on the sofa by the soft glow of the lamplight, in a white dress edged with lace that only reminded him of her virginal innocence, Oswald felt terrible as the memories of the past weighed him down heavy as a lead weight. He drank his scotch and poured another as she sipped her own drink, then he set the glass down and turned to her seated beside him as he saw a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes.

“I won't deny in the course of my criminal career, interrogation was sometimes necessary – in times of gangland trouble. But what is in the sub basement is _nothing_ to do with me, Polly.”

She breathed an audible sigh as relief flooded her gaze, but fear still lingered there as he looked at her, haunted by his own recollections.

“The price of my rise to power was a terrible one. My mother was kidnapped by the Galavans and I vowed to save her – and I did, Polly! I found her, I freed her and then...” he paused, dragging in a sharp breath as the memory hit him hard as if it were yesterday. He blinked away tears as he looked into her eyes, “She was murdered by Tabitha Galavan. Tabby knifed her in the back, a harmless, defenceless old woman who was a threat to no one!” he blinked away more tears, for a moment his shoulders sagged as he stifled a sob, then he took a deep breath, composing himself as he met her gaze once more and continued:

“Mother died in my arms. I vowed revenge. But I bided my time, waiting for the right moment. I killed her lover Butch, purely to cause her grief but that was not enough! After the chaos came to the city, I claimed my place in power and then.... she disappeared. This was around the time Ed had started to hold parties at a property he bought before the fall of Gotham – this place, he called it the Riddle House. I had my own business ventures and at the time, our paths seldom crossed. Then he told me, he had made Tabitha vanish permanently. He said _I did it for you, she's dead, Oswald!_ And that persuaded me to form an alliance with him, put our past grievances behind us and start again. But time caught up with us – with me, mainly. As soon as order was restored, I was marked for a fall. The authorities had to pull up the old villains in the new peace time, and by then Ed had become father to little Pearl and vowed to start a new life. Purely because he was this _apparently_ reformed character who had adopted an orphan from the Haven tragedy...” Oswald paused, shaking his head, then he reached for his drink, took a mouthful and set the glass down again.

“He was raising Pearl at the house he now shares with Lee and the kids. He kept the Riddle House purely as a reminder of the old days, he told me. His place to party and sit and count his money... I'd rarely come over here, when he wasn't with Pearl he left her with a nanny and he was out womanising – this was before he got together with Lee. It took the authorities almost four years to build enough of a case against me to get me put away for a long time. In those years before my arrest, I was still a criminal, still running the underworld... Ed was... doing his own thing mostly. We ran the Lounge together, he took care of it all. I knew he had a cellar in this place. He told me there was another level and he said he kept weapons down there. I didn't need to see them, I had an army of my own...”

Oswald paused again, briefly closing his eyes as too much of the dark past came back to him. Then he took another drink and met her gaze.

“This is horrible, Polly. I never wanted you to know...”

She reached for his hand, briefly grasping it.

“It sounds like there's something terrible that you've had to carry for a long time – alone,” she replied, “And you don't have to do that any more, I'm here for you, Oswald.”

Pain reflected in his gaze.

“Ed was wild in those days. I don't just mean crazy and daring, I mean... he was insane, and he was taking a lot of drugs... It brought out not just Riddler but the crazy, dark side of _him_... I didn't know how dark it was, how sick he was, until one day I heard Riddler had been in a fight with the Bat, and Ed wasn't answering his calls, so I went over to the Riddle House and I found the back door open... I went inside, I saw the cellar door was wide open and I called his name but heard nothing. _So I went down there_....”

Oswald's voice trembled as he drank more from the glass, then he set it down again, shaking his head as he wished he had never seen, never known, anything would have been better than to live with the memory of _this_...

“What happened?” Polly asked quietly.

Oswald took a deep breath, finding enough strength to relate the rest of the tale as he spoke up again.

“Before I go on, I want you to know I have standards, Polly. I am also a gentleman! There are some things so terrible even I, with my blood soaked past, find unacceptable. Unholy... _disgusting!_ ” Oswald shook his head again, looking down at the floor as he briefly fell silent, then he turned his head and looked at her as he related the rest of what happened on that terrible day.

“I went down to the cellar... it was empty, but the door was open to the sub basement. The light was on... I went down the stairs....”

His voice had trembled.

“Go on,” she said gently.

Oswald looked bewildered, for a moment shock echoed in his voice as he spoke again.

“Ed wasn't down there. But Tabitha Galavan was. He'd kept her in a cage. But now she was on a table and she was naked and... and.... it was clear he had been torturing her in many... _inventive_ ways... sick ways... If I had got to her first, a knife through the heart would have been enough, a swift execution for the murder of my mother. But Ed didn't think like me... Tabitha had already paid for my mother's death a thousand times over... You've seen that basement. You know what's in there. Believe me when I say it was clear he had used her in every way possible and used every instrument of torture in that room too... He had also been _experimenting_ with a scalpel. I don't want to say what he did to her, I saw her wounds...”

Oswald's eyes had glazed with tears. He needed a moment to sip his drink as he composed himself, dragging out the words to explain:

“She wasn't Tabby any more. Not the killer who took my mother's life. She was just a victim of... _depravity!_ It seemed Ed had been in the habit of sewing her mouth shut to keep her quiet. I cut the stitches and as I put my arm around her and raised her head from the table she looked at me...” his voice was shaken once more, “I have standards, Polly. Understand Ed was out of control, he was sick, he was insane and by now, Tabitha Galavan had been missing for three years. _He had held her in that basement and used and tortured her for three long years!_ ”

Polly drew in a sharp breath. Despite his hatred for his mother's killer, what Oswald had seen that day had clearly brought out nothing but compassion for what was left of her...

“I didn't wait,” he said as tears choked his voice, “She was dying, she was suffering... and by the way it looked to me Ed hadn't finished with her yet... So I covered her body with a sheet to give her some dignity and then I loaded up a needle with an overdose of pain relief and I said, _Do you want to see Butch?_ And she looked up at me and whispered his name, and I said...” Oswald paused, brushing away tears with the back of his hand, “I said, _Say Hi to Butch for me.._. and then I injected her and she was dead, she was out of her misery!”

He stopped there, taking a deep breath as he calmed himself, pushing away the worst of the terrible memories.

“Ed walked in and he flew into a rage, yelling _why did you kill my pet?_ I hit him so hard I knocked him out, then I called Victor Zsasz and explained Ed had done something terrible, and he came over and cleaned up and took the body away... I kept Ed in the house, I forced him to tell me why – I needed to know WHY! And he said, she tried to come on to him. She got kinky with him. Wanted to seduce him and being Ed, he couldn't resist. She let him whip her and have sex with her and she would crawl across the floor and call him Daddy... then she attacked him and tried to escape but he overpowered her, locked her in that cage and when he said she was never leaving, he meant it! That was when the games continued by this time, she had no say in the matter... And it had got worse and worse for her over three years until I turned up unexpectedly. On that day, I found out Ed had just a bruise on his cheek from a clash with the bat. Just a bruise! You can be assured his bruises were _much_ deeper by the time I'd finished with him. There was _no_ excuse for what he did, I won't stand for that kind of depravity – even Tabitha didn't deserve that!”

Oswald blinked away the last of his tears.

“I hated her, Polly. But what Ed did was insane! He had a breakdown soon after and he was put in Arkham for a few months, they gave him shock therapy and put him on meds and when he came out, he was different. By then I was in Blackgate starting a long sentence because someone had to pay publicly for the way the old underworld used to be run. The authorities made sure it was me who paid the price. No one knew about Ed, what he'd done to Tabby. But he seemed to get better – at least, he wasn't a threat any more. He went back to being a father to Pearl, then he married Lee and for years since, he's been happy. I asked him why he did those things to Tabitha, and he told me it was because my mother was a loving parent – something he never had as a child, and at first, he wanted her to suffer for what she'd done, but then, he kept on making her pay and it just got darker and more out of control... Sometimes I still think I see a hint of satisfaction in his eyes when he looks to that cellar door. But he's always been crazy. I guess he just went extra crazy and full blown monster for a while.”

“And you trust him, you feel safe with him?” Polly asked quietly.

”He's changed, he's different now. You haven't see the change that I have, Polly. He's still Ed, but he's older and he cherishes his family. He gets to be what his own childhood denied him: a loving father. And he was there for me after the shooting, loyal as ever.”

Polly gave a heavy sigh as she reached for Oswald's hand.

“And this happened more than twenty years back?”

“Yes,” Oswald replied, “And he takes his meds, he's kept out of trouble – it would kill Lee if she knew about this! It would kill Pearl too... his family keep him in line, Polly. You must believe me when I say he would never harm you. I know it, I know him!”

“Could you have told the police about what he did?” she asked.

Oswald shook his head.

“They were already preparing to put me away for a long time – they would have charged us both, made it look like I was involved in what he did! Purely because I knew the authorities were trying to trap me, I had to cover up her death and Ed's crimes. But as I said, Ed was in Arkham for a while, and this time, I think it worked. And now he has the kids and he loves them, Polly. He lives for his family. They keep him sane.”

She gave a shiver and Oswald shifted closer to her looking intently into her eyes.

“He will _never_ harm you. I know it, I am sure of it! I don't hate Ed, he's my best friend. But I do pity him, I pity the state of his mind, his sick mind that drove him to do those terrible things. He's always suffered, Polly. And now he has to live with his conscience.”

Polly thought on all he had said. There was just something about Ed that set her on edge, and now it made perfect sense. The look she saw in Oswald's eyes broke her heart, such pain at the terrible memories that would ever haunt him.

“You don't have to carry this secret alone now,” she vowed, and as she embraced him, he held on tightly feeling thankful for her love and trust and willingness to help him carry a weight he was sure would never lift from his shoulders.

Next morning, the sight of the cellar door sent chills down Polly's spine. But it was locked and staying that way, she reminded herself of that fact as she cooked breakfast knowing eating would be hard with the memory all Oswald had told her still fresh in her mind. But reminding herself that Oswald had to live with all he had seen was all she needed to know that he had much worse to handle: He had witnessed something terrible, something so terrible it had shocked him despite his bloody history as Gotham's underworld king... Ed was away until Monday. That was a relief, to know he wouldn't be over to see his best friend for a couple of days. She didn't know exactly how much Ed had changed over the years – she didn't doubt he was still crazy to a degree, he had been rumoured to have killed many people during his crime wave – but this was different. It was sickening, it chilled her... Ed could have simply killed Tabitha but instead he had kept her prisoner for three long terrible years...

_Polly still had many questions._

Last night, Oswald had been too upset by the raw pain and trauma of the memory. They had gone to bed and embraced and slept until morning, and said little as they woke and prepared to start the day. Oswald still had that sad look in his eyes, he didn't regret sharing the truth, he just wished he had never had to know it in the first place...

“Why did you decide to stay here, Oswald?” she asked as they sat at the table together and Oswald was about to eat.

He paused, putting his fork down as he looked across the table at Polly, who had not lived through the dark times in the violent days of old, who had not lived his struggle to become king of Gotham.

“There was a lot of death in the old days, Polly. A lot of gangland wars and killings. I accepted that as part of becoming the Penguin. But _nothing_ could have prepared me for the nature of what Ed did to Tabitha Galavan. I try not to think about it, and the only reason why I chose to stay here in this house after what happened, is because I had no where else to go, if I'd refused Ed's offer, I would have been alone and struggling – having money isn't everything, not when you need support. And Ed gave me plenty of support over the years. I saw the change in him the day he brought Pearl to visit me in jail. He was like a different person. And staying here after the shooting meant I was safe. This house is a forgotten relic from the old days, and it has plenty of privacy where I can leave the rest of the city to believe I'm finished and no threat to the underworld. As long as I'm here, living quietly, there will be no more attempts on my life. And I realise you will find this hard, knowing all you do about him but please, talk to Ed – just get to know the person he is today. He's a loving husband, a devoted father and a loyal friend to me. He's the only friend I have, Polly. He's stuck by me because I forgave his terrible deeds.”

Polly took a deep breath as she thought about Ed, creepy Ed who she had learned so much about, and all of it bad.

“You're sure he wont harm me?”

“I am _very_ sure!”

Oswald paused to sip his tea.

“How can you be certain?” she asked.

Oswald set his tea down and looked across the table at her.

“Please my dear, just talk to Ed. Obviously, _don't_ bring up the past! Just get to know who he is today. He's not a maniac any more. I'll always say he's _probably_ capable of killing, if he had to protect me or his family – yes, he would be the same Riddler he was back in the day – before the Tabitha incident. But that animal side to him, that terrible side that emerged to torture Tabby, is long gone. You can believe that, it is a fact.”

Oswald sounded so sure. She nodded slowly, deciding nothing until Ed returned to the house, knowing only when she looked into his eyes, would she be able to decide on anything – either way, she had decided to keep a huge distance from the man and never, ever be alone with him... And then the conversation was dropped, because Oswald started to talk about the future. Warmth shone in his eyes as he smiled and talked of plans to put the past far behind them and focus on the present and all they shared. He told her again how much he loved her. And the day went on, without another mention of the horrific events that had happened in the house so long ago...

Oswald had felt sharp, stabbing pains in his lower back around late afternoon and after being forced to abandon his cane and rely on the wheelchair once more, Polly had taken him upstairs to rest as she reminded him that he would still get bad days sometimes, and tomorrow would be better.

It didn't feel that way to Oswald as he waited for the pain relief to kick in and had to rely on Polly to undress him and help him into bed. Oswald's hopes for a near normal day felt crushed. He knew nothing would be normal for a long while, that perfect sense of love and joy that had surrounded them was marred by a shadow of the past now, but he still had no regrets, she had seen the basement, she had deserved to be handed the truth about Ed's hidden room...

“I'm going to finish up downstairs and then I'll be back to join you,” Polly said, and she kissed his cheek and left the room as Oswald lay on his bed, his dressing gown open as he wished he could reverse time and... No, he didn't want to change the part about telling Polly what had happened:

_He wished he could have learned about Tabby sooner._

_If he had known Ed was keeping her prisoner, he would have put a stop to it..._

As he lay there, he thought back to a day when he had gone over to visit Ed, it was a week before he had made the shocking discovery in the cellar, it was the day there had been a knock at the door and when he recalled what Ed had said on opening the door to Jim, knowing all he did now, it made his blood run cold every time he looked back on it:

_He had stopped by to speak to Ed about some business. They had gone through to the study and had a drink while Ed talked about the Lounge and how much money it was making, and then the knock had sounded at the door. Oswald had watched as Ed shifted the curtain and then turned from the window._

_“It's Jim Gordon!” he exclaimed._

_“What he hell does he want?” Oswald said._

_“I don't know...” Ed muttered as a thousand possibilities ran through his mind, he had got a way with a lot since the war had ended, he was still a thief, and this could be about anything..._

_Ed opened up the door._

_Jim stood on the porch looking back at him as Oswald limped to his best friend's side._

_“Yes, Jim, what can I do for you?” Ed asked as tension crept into his voice._

_Jim stood there, pausing to look left and right at the deserted drive and the landscaped garden before meeting his gaze once more._

_“This is probably a waste of time. But I was going over the Galavan case one more time because we're reviewing unsolved cases and I came across a witness statement that said Tabitha was present at this house two years ago, she was seen entering the building by a party guest...I know we've been through this before, Ed – but I just need to know if you remember anything else she said to you that night.”_

_Ed gave sigh as he looked wearily at Jim._

_“We did this two years back! I told you, she stopped by because she said she had some business with Sofia Falcone and she wanted to know if I had considered her offer – selling the Lounge. I politely declined and Tabby left the house – did your witness mention that, or were they too drunk to recall that part at the time, Jim?”_

_As Jim stood there, recalling the accuracy of the statement and all Ed had just repeated, he knew this was a waste of time. It wasn't the only lead, he had spoken to others that day, working the missing persons case one more time before moving on to more pressing matters, and no leads had been successful._

_“You can't give me any more information?”_

_Ed shrugged._

_“Sorry, Jim, that's all I've got.”_

_“And you don't know where she might be?”_

_Ed exchanged a glance with Oswald, and to Oswald's horror, Ed laughed as he looked at Jim._

_“Sure I know were she is, Jim! She's chained up naked in my cellar, I keep her for fun and games!”_

_Jim frowned. Ed grinned as a manic gleam came to his eyes. Oswald took a step back from the doorway, looking in horror at Ed as he wondered why the hell he would say something so sick. And the cellar? He had mentioned the fucking cellar? According to Ed, the sub basement beneath it was filled with weapons – illegal weapons. If Jim found those, they would both be fucked, both in jail by the end of the day because that would be a perfect excuse for Jim to charge the pair of them...._

_“You shouldn't have said that, Ed,” Jim warned him, “I realise that was some kind of sick joke, but now I need to see your cellar.”_

_Ed's smile faded._

_“Really?”_

_“Now, please?” Jim said, and it sounded more like an order than a request..._

_Oswald felt sick as he limped behind Jim and Ed as they walked through to the kitchen and Ed opened up the door to the cellar and turned on the light._

_Jim had glanced at Ed, who gestured to the open door. Oswald had looked away, thinking of the weapons stash and breaking into a sweat._

_Jim had gone down into the cellar. Ed had followed. Oswald had limped halfway down the stairs, watching as Jim looked about an empty room with a partly stocked wine rack and a rug in the middle of the room, with a table set in its centre, and playing cards and books of riddles scattered about._

_Jim looked back at Ed, then he glared towards the staircase where Oswald stood, but it was Ed he addressed as he angrily spoke up:_

_“I fully understand that you and Oswald don't give a shit that Tabitha Galavan is missing. Why would you care, she allegedly killed Oswald's mother! But she's still a missing person and despite the many crimes we handle every day in this city, we still have to look into old cases! Thank you for wasting my time, any more smart comments and I'll have you locked in a cell and charged with wasting police time, Nygma!”_

_“Maybe I wouldn't be so inspired to make those remarks if Tabby was charged with causing the death of Gertrud Kapelput,” Ed replied._

_Jim had shot him a furious look and muttered something about needing solid evidence, and then he had walked back up the staircase, passing Oswald on the way. Jim had left the house by the back door and as soon as he was gone and they were back in the kitchen with the cellar door firmly closed, Oswald had glared at Ed._

_“Why the hell did you say that?” he demanded._

_“I thought it was funny!” Ed had replied._

_“He could have found the sub basement and your weapons stash! We both could have been charged for that!” Oswald fumed._

_Ed smiled as he looked down at his shorter, angry best friend._

_And what he said next would stay with Oswald forever, when he looked back and recalled all he had found out later:_

_“Don't get so mad,” Ed said playfully, “Think about it, Oswald, it's funny! Tabby naked and chained in my basement!”_

_“But that wouldn't be funny, that would be sick!” Oswald said angrily._

_Ed chuckled._

_“Then maybe I'm just sick, because I think the idea is fucking hilarious!” he had replied..._

Oswald was still thinking back to that day as he gave a shiver despite the warmth of the breeze that shifted in from the open window. He had believed Ed had killed Tabby, a simple murder carried out because Ed wanted to exact revenge for Gertrud's death.

_But how differently it had turned out._

_Ed had lied and kept her captive, and Oswald had known nothing about this until the terrible discovery in the sub basement..._

Oswald sat up on the bed, taking a slow breath as he wished he could just forget the past. Then the door opened and Polly entered the bedroom.

“How do you feel now?” she asked softly.

“A little better,” Oswald replied as she smiled at him and he smiled back as their shared gaze reflected love.

All feelings of relaxation left him as she placed the packet of condoms in the drawer next the bed. She stripped off her dress and she was naked beneath it, her sex was swollen and glistening and her nipples were standing hard and deep pink and her eyes were like dark pools as she climbed on to the bed and laid beside him. He settled back and turned on his side, giving a hiss of pain as his back throbbed, and then as their gaze met, he felt a surge of panic.

”Polly, I...I don't think I can - I mean, I might not be up to this yet and I don't want to disappoint you -”

Polly instantly reached for him, placing a hand on his cheek as she spoke softly, her heart aching for his insecurities that had left him a stammering wreck.

“We don't have to do that, not tonight. Let's wait until you're ready. I love you, Oswald,” she promised him, and as she kissed him tenderly, he clung to her, their kiss growing deeper as he felt instant reassurance from her closeness.

He was growing hard but didn't know how he would feel once a condom dulled the sensation. These days he was lucky if he got through a day without a leak of urine, and he could just about last long enough to see a blow job through, and he was thankful he had that. But with his back and his crippled leg and the sensation issue in his groin, he couldn't imagine himself ever being the kind of lover Polly hoped he would be.

“I'm so thankful for your patience,” he whispered as they lay together.

Her hand slid over his thigh and he caught his breath as she closed her hand about his cock and started to jerk him firmly.

“Want me to be filthy, Oswald?”

“ _Oh yes please!”_ he gasped, closing his eyes as he focused on the sensation growing as his cock got harder.

“ _I'm going to work on your cock all night if I have to, Ozzie,”_ she said softly, _“Whatever to takes to make you come...”_  
He took in a sharp breath as he felt himself get closer to the edge. It was all new to him, and at a time in his life when he had written off the thought of ever knowing love again. He took in short, sharp gasps as she jerked him harder, then his fingers were biting into her shoulder as he held on tightly, panting as he looked into her eyes.

“ _I'm going to...to... I'm coming!”_

He gave another gasp as semen pumped out quickly, it had been brief but now he felt overwhelmed with relief that again, he had managed to reach orgasm. It gave him hope that eventually he would be able to make love to her. He pulled her closer, kissing her softly. Then as he felt an accidental leak run warm over his thigh and on to the bed, leaving a small wet patch where she lay, his eyes went wide.

”Oh shit, I'm _so_ sorry!”

She shifted slightly, looking down to see the covers had been marked with a small spot of piss. It wasn't a major accident, and nothing could ruin what they had just shared.

“It's okay, Ozzie, it doesn't matter!” she said, and she pulled him close and kissed him again as he held on tightly, thankful for her understanding.

A short while later she removed the top cover and they lay in bed together, Oswald held her close as she slept in his arms as outside, shadows of night beckoned. He looked to Polly and felt thankful for her love and understanding, then as he looked into the growing darkness outside, his memory shifted back to shadowed recollections of a terrible time. He hoped all he had told Polly would be enough, because he didn't want to talk about Tabitha Galavan any more...

He also hoped Polly would never find out the rest, because there _was_ more and it was complicated to explain – but he was no monster like Ed, never had been, never would be – but the Tabby matter had been _far_ more complicated than Ed simply abducting her... and _that_ was something he never wanted Polly to know, because sometimes a simple murder out of the need for revenge could turn into something far worse, especially with Ed in full maniac mode and lying and secretly taking control, holding a prisoner in a situation that _never_ should have happened... Oswald felt haunted by the past as he looked into the darkness and clung to Polly, hoping for the night to melt into a better tomorrow, where old dark deeds long buried would leave them both the hell alone...


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

That morning as he woke to sunlight falling in soft through the net curtains, Oswald moved cautiously and smiled, feeling relieved to know his back wasn't killing him that day. The pain had eased up overnight – maybe it was the heat of her body as she lay beside him, or perhaps love just had a curative power, he mused. He was feeling hopeful despite the gloom cast over their lives after he had felt obliged to be honest and share the terrible secret about Tabitha.

_But just how much truth did he have to reveal to make honesty worth its weight?_

He thought about other, additional facts he had not yet shared with Polly and hoped that she would ask him no more. If she did, he felt he had no choice but to tell her, out of love and the need to hide nothing from her. He was sure of his feelings, sure of his trust, too – and that was all the more reason to honour her trust by hiding nothing... He had told her the part that mattered :

_He had nothing to do with Tabby's ordeal at Ed's hands. He had not known she was in the basement, he had never known Ed would go down into such a spiral of insanity, despite the fact that he knew him well and understood Ed Nygma had been capable of committing murder before he became Riddler – but he had never expected him to do something like that, not to anyone, not even to Tabitha, despite his rage over the murder of Mrs Kapelput, who in his eyes, was sainted almost to a holy standard because she had been a loving parent, something Ed had never known in his own abusive childhood..._

For a brief moment, Oswald's thoughts went far back to happy times in his youth, when his mother was still alive. The one good person in his life, like a ray of hope in this dark and painful world, she had never failed him, always believed in him... and he felt sure, had she met Polly, that she would have approved. _A nice girl,_ she would have said, _a decent young lady, Oswald..._ Mother had always feared he would get mixed up with the wrong kind of girl. Oswald had frequently got mixed up with the wrong kind of men and women within the circle that he moved in back in the old days, but that was life as an underworld king... And Polly was nothing to do with that. She had come into his life, sweet and pure with a kind heart...

Oswald felt a wave of love wash over him as he watched her sleeping beside him. He didn't know what he had ever done right to deserve someone unselfish with no secret agenda, coming into his life and simply loving him...

“I love you so much, Polly,” he whispered, and he leaned closer and softly kissed her cheek. She opened her eyes, their gaze met and she smiled as she reached for him, pulling him closer as they shared a deep and passionate kiss.

A short, hot few moments after that first shared kiss, Oswald was on his side in bed as his hands shook and he tore open the wrapper and took out the condom. He put it on carefully, focusing on the fact that he was solidly erect, and he hoped he would stay that way. Nervousness had cancelled out all thoughts of pain as he carefully shifted over, positioning himself between her open legs as he got on top and looked into the eyes of the beautiful woman whose words _make love to me_ , did nothing to help his anxiety.

“I shall certainly try!” he said in a shaking voice, and thrust slowly and gently inside her, as he felt a moment of resistance and she gave a whimper, then clung to him tighter.

Knowing he had just taken her virginity helped to keep him hard as he drew out of her and then thrust slowly back in, he saw the rubber slick with her fluids and a streak of blood but she was over the pain now as she held on and he kissed her tenderly and tried, carefully, to make small thrusting movements, he felt pain in his back and his knee, but he was panting hard as he held her, he had seen the look on her face, first pain and then pleasure and now she was moving with him, and he didn't care that his back was hurting, he was making love to Polly, it hadn't been planned like this, but it had happened in a moment of passion when it seemed like the right time and now, he was hard and staying hard, and shaking as he made love to her. He had silently hoped nothing would go wrong, but as she said _Fuck me, Ozzie,_ _fuck me with your big cock,_ he gave a gasp, wanting to kiss her and thank her for that moment of filth that made his cock throb and his balls go tight.

“ _Ozzie...”_ she said breathlessly, and her fingers slid through his hair as he kissed her, burying deep inside her with a final thrust. As he came, the sharp throb made him break off from their kiss as he threw his head back giving a sharp gasp. As he met her gaze he was still inside her, and now the pleasure had faded, he was aware of a slow burning pain deep in his lower spine, but he didn't care.

“I love you so much, Polly!” he said as victory shone in his gaze.

“I love you too, Ozzie!”

He withdrew from her, turned on his back and was surprised to see just how much semen was inside that condom – he had come much harder and in greater volume than before.

“I'll do that for you,” she said, and she sat up and carefully took off the condom, then she left the room to dispose of it as Oswald lay there still flushed and perspiring. His back was hurting. He would need rest and pills today, to get over this. But he had done it, he had done what he had feared was impossible. He had made love at last! As Polly returned to the room, he smiled as she rejoined him in bed, and as they lay together he kissed her softly.

“I hope that was enough for you, my dear,” he said as their gaze met.

“Oswald, it was wonderful, just to be with you! I love you so much!”

As she stroked his face and then slid her fingers through his hair, she was briefly shifted out of their warm afterglow by the realisation that Oswald had tears in his eyes.

“Ozzie?”

“I'm so glad I managed not to let you down!” he said tearfully, “I'm so relieved I can make love...I feared I would fail you, Polly. I've felt less of a man since the shooting, I didn't know if I could please you -”

“It was enough!” she assured him softly as she pulled him closer, and she held him tightly as he wept tears of relief. Polly didn't let go, she held on to him whispering that she loved him, reassuring him until his tears had stopped and then she began to slowly trace a path of kisses down his body as she reminded him all over again that he was truly loved.

Polly got up late that morning, as Oswald felt a sharp pain in his back that made him break into a sweat.

“I'll be okay... I can get up,” he protested, and for once the sight of her naked body as she threw on a silken robe did nothing to distract him as the pain took over and he tried to stifle a yell of pain.

“ _Fuck this!”_ he gasped, _“Sometimes I think one of those bullets should have killed me!”_

“No, you don't mean that! Lie back and rest,” she told him, “That's all you need to do.”

Her hands on his shoulders were a gentle touch that soothed away the worst of his panic as the pain burned deeply. She gave him his pills before she took a shower, and when she returned to the bedroom, Oswald was sleeping deeply, taking the rest he needed after the strain their lovemaking had put on his damaged spine. She paused for a moment to look at him lying there, naked and resting and no longer in pain as he breathed easily, then she placed a soft kiss on his hairline and left the room quietly, deciding to make breakfast and leave him to sleep and recover.

While Polly cooked breakfast, she had a smile on her face. She swore she could still feel him, where he had been, deep inside her. There was a tiny ache where her hymen had broken as his big cock had entered her for the first time, and deep inside, she felt a nicer ache where she longed to feel him inside her again. She knew he had paid a price for making love, but nothing would be easy as he used the cane more and the wheelchair less, it would be a tough journey to recover but Oswald would get there, he was determined. A sudden thought struck her that brought tears to her eyes, as she thought of the bastards who had shot him and caused such damage to the man she loved. A heat was rising inside her, a rage that was powerful enough to want her to track down the person responsible for the attempt on his life, and kill them... Her heart ached for poor Ozzie, facing a lifetime of pain because of the damage those bullets had done... then she wiped her eyes, finished cooking breakfast and sat down to eat. Ozzie was still upstairs sleeping, and she wanted him to rest, to give the pills a chance to work and take the edge off the pain so later, he could face getting up. But if he wanted to spend the rest of the day in bed that was fine too, she would be happy to keep him company...

She was just about to finish her coffee when there was a knock at the door. The sound carried down the hallway and she hoped it hadn't woken Oswald, who need to rest. Polly got up from the table and hurried out of the room, not caring that she was answering the door in just a short silk robe that skimmed her thighs, she just wanted the damned knocking to stop for Oswald's sake...

As Polly opened up the door, she looked in surprise at the caller. A woman stood there dressed in black, her leather boots had spiked heels and her long dark hair tumbled in waves over her shoulders. She smiled but her eyes remained cold.

“I'm here to see Oswald,” she said, “Please tell him Sofia Falcone needs to speak with him urgently.”

Polly felt a jolt on hearing her name : This was Sofia, who currently ran the underworld? She looked back at her, seeing an empty car parked in the driveway, she had come alone, so surely, there was no threat to Oswald? And Sofia believed he was helpless after that shooting, and no threat to her hold on power. She decided she would let her in, but she would have to wait to see Ozzie... Polly took a deep breath and stepped back.

”Please come in.” She said.

As Polly shut the door behind her, Sofia paused to look about the grand entrance hall, and then back at Polly.

“Where's Oswald?”

“He's resting,” Polly told her, “You're more than welcome to wait while I inform him of your visit.”

Sofia looked her up and down.

“You're the _help,_ and you walk about this house wearing next to nothing? I'm surprised Oswald approves of that!”

“He's resting in bed,” Polly replied, “Please, come with me.”

She led her through to the front room, where Sofia sat down on a chair close to the fireplace as Polly looked at her, internally feeling a spike of anger as the thought ran through her mind, _That is my Oswald's favourite chair!_

“I'll just let him know you're here,” Polly said, and turned for the door.

“ _Wait.”_

As Polly turned back to her, Sofia saw a look of unease in her eyes that said maybe this young woman knew something – she had heard about the claim that it was Oswald who had called the booze company to adjust Ed's order, and that had made her very suspicious indeed, because Oswald was rumoured to be unable to speak or get out of bed...

“Yes?” Polly said, and she sounded nervous.

Sofia couldn't hide the sly smile that came to her face as she spotted it. Yes, there _was_ something going on around here and maybe, Oswald wasn't as helpless as the rumours suggested. Maybe, he was recovered and planning to spark a gang war...

“How is Oswald these days?”

“The same,” Polly replied, “That's why I'm here, he needs a lot of help. He always will.”

“I heard he made a call to a supplier for the club because Ed Nygma screwed up on an order. And I was told Oswald sounded just like his old self... can you think of an explanation for this?”

Polly shrugged.

“A misunderstanding, I guess... Oswald isn't strong enough to handle any kind of business, Ms Falcone. Maybe you shouldn't take silly rumours too seriously.”

Polly finished that remark with a smile.

“Would you like some coffee, perhaps?”

“Yes, I would,” she replied, “And I'd also like to speak with Oswald. Understand I'm _not_ leaving until I've seen him.”

“Of course,” Polly replied, and then as she left the room she broke into a sweat as her heart raced. That woman just gave off evil like it was this years best selling perfume! She felt it, and it was pure instinct: _Sofia was a threat to Oswald. She had heard about him speaking on the phone and realised he wasn't as helpless as she had believed and now, she saw him as a potential threat..._

Polly was just about to pour the coffee when she heard a sound carry down the hallway:

_The clicking of heels..._

Polly hurried from the kitchen and looked out in time to see Sofia cross the hallway and enter Oswald's study. She took in a sharp breath as her eyes went wide:

_What the hell was she doing in there?_

Polly dashed down the hallway, coming to a stop at the open door to the study. Sofia stood behind Oswald's desk, sliding a drawer closed as she looked up coldly at her.

”Yes?” she demanded.

“You can't come in here, this is Oswald's private study.”

Sofia leaned on the desk as her cleavage thrust forward framed by her long mane of dark hair as she looked doubtfully at Polly.

“Tell me why a man who can't speak or get out of bed needs to keep his study guarded? Does he have paperwork in here?”

“Oswald can't do paperwork, Ms Falcone.”

She had tried to sound truthful as she said that, and then she walked over to the desk. Inside, Polly was shaking. She hoped her fear didn't show. But then Sofia did something that changed the course of everything. There would be no coffee or a need to wake Oswald and tell him he needed to pretend to be unable to walk or talk, because Sofia joined her on the other side of the desk, and then she put leather gloves on and spoke again, saying something that chilled Polly to the bone:

“How much do you want, what's your price to tell me the truth... _what_ is your name?”

“Polly,” she replied, standing her ground, “And you can't buy me and there is no truth to be told!”

Sofia smiled as she shook her head.

“Oh, he's got you well trained... if I didn't know better I'd say he's probably fucking you too, but if any of the rumours are true, I do know for a fact that bullet to his back did a lot of damage. I doubt he's capable of fucking! Does he still pee himself? Even if he is far better recovered than I was led to believe, I don't doubt he's probably limping around this place planning his take over of my underworld, and doing it wearing a diaper! Tell me all about the _pissy Penguin_ , Polly...”

Sofia reached into her jacket. There was a click and a knife with a sharp, gleaming blade sliced through the air as Sofia held it, blade upwards. Polly stared at the knife. Then a gloved hand was about her throat and she was fighting for air as the blade pressed cold to her cheek.

“Tell me what he's planning, or I'll cut you pieces, you stupid girl!”

“ _He's not -”_

“ _Don't lie to me!”_ rage burned in Sofia's eyes as she squeezed harder as Polly's hand slammed on the desk as she fought for air and fought to keep her balance. Sofia's eyes were ice cold, as cold as the tip of the blade that stung her cheek as she pressed there as Polly trembled.

“Start talking!” Sofia ordered.

Polly's hand closed over a heavy glass paperweight on the desk as she kept her gaze on Sofia's.

“Okay!” she gasped, “But pay me, I need the money!”

Sofia smiled in pure satisfaction as she let go of her throat, but kept the knife raised, just a fraction from her face.

“Of course you have a price. You're just the hired help. You're no one.”

Polly looked back at her, as something cold and strangely logical settled inside her.

“What are you going to do to Oswald?” she whispered.

“I need the combination to the safe, to see what he's been planning - and then I'm going to kill him. Now I regret having him shot when he left Blackgate... I should have done the job myself! And how you react to _that_ depends on whether or not I have to kill two people today.”

“Maybe I could work for you...”

“Where's Oswald?”

“He's sleeping.”

“What's the combination to the safe?”

“I don't know,” Polly replied, “But he keeps it there, in his notebook.”

Her eyes darted to the other end of the desk.

Sofia still had the knife in her hand as she glanced back.

“Where?” she asked.

Polly grabbed the paperweight and smacked it over the back of Sofia's head. Red spray shot up and hit her warm on the right side of her face as Sofia fell to the floor, and Polly fell to her knees as the knife slipped from Sofia's hand as she raised the paperweight and brought it down with another bloody crack. … _She had called him names, made fun of him?_

She hit her again.

_Sofia had been responsible for the hit that had almost killed him, crippled him, left her precious Ozzie weeping in bed because he was afraid he couldn't make love?_

Polly hit her again and her skull caved in, giving way to sharp broken bone and bloody tissue and brain matter.

_...Sofia had planned to kill Oswald today?_

_After all she had done to make him suffer?_

She slammed the paperweight into her head again, and it sunk into soft brains and it was slippery to pull out. It rolled on to the rug, glass coated in gore as Polly breathlessly got up, she saw the blood on her hands, then looked to the mirror giving a gasp as she saw one side of her face spattered scarlet. Blood was all over her silken robe too...

_This was a mess._

“I'm going to hell for this!” she muttered as she looked down in dismay at Sofia's corpse with the back of its head bashed in so badly there was a big, circular hole where the paperweight had smashed through bone and pulverised brains. The knife shone silver on the floor. Polly picked it up, pressed a button and the blade retracted. She set it down on the desk and then looked down at the body once more.

“ _Well,”_ she murmured, _“I am supposed to keep the house tidy...”_ and then she grabbed Sofia by her boots and began to drag her out of the study and down the hallway, leaving a bloody slick behind her as she dragged the body towards the kitchen.

Polly left the body on the floor while she washed her hands in the sink, then she splashed her face and finally stripped off the robe and put it in the washing machine, threw in other laundry and started a hot wash. Then she looked back at the body that was bleeding out on the floor and felt sick and shocked at the same time, then she laughed at the irony of what she had done, coming here to be so shocked to learn of the deeds carried out in this house years before, and here she was now, killing Sofia...

_Another body for the sub basement..._

_But Sofia had come here planning to kill Oswald._

_She would have killed them both._

_Polly kept reminding herself, there had been no other choice..._

She hurried upstairs. Oswald was still sleeping. She grabbed a dress and a pair of shoes and the keys to the cellar, and then she left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She was never happy to think Oswald couldn't get up and get dressed without help, but today, it was fortunate. She couldn't tell him what she had done... Maybe one day the time would be right but for now, she had to take care of him and he didn't need to know she had just defended him and saved her own life by bashing in Sofia's brains...

Polly unlocked the door to the cellar and dragged the body to the top of the stairway, then she gave it a shove and watched as the corpse bumped and thumped down to the bottom, hitting the concrete floor with a sickening crack. Now Sofia's hand was bent at an angle, just like her broken neck. Her head was still oozing _stuff_ from that gaping hole. Polly went carefully down the stairs, avoiding spiders and slippery blood smears and reached the bottom, turned back the rug and with a great struggle, managed to get the hatch open. She turned on the light and kicked the body, then kicked it again as it lodged on the third stair, and Sofia tumbled to the bottom, lying with dead eyes staring upward on the floor of the sub basement.

“ _You deserved it!”_ hissed Polly, and she closed the hatch heavily before looking about the blood stained floor of the cellar:

She would have to start down here and work her way up, she decided, clean the cellar, the steps and then the kitchen floor, then the hallway and the study last of all...

It had taken a while to work her way up from the cellar, scrubbing and cleaning until no trace of blood remained. The biggest challenge had been the study. She had even found a bone fragment on Oswald's favourite chair. Sofia's head must have caved in like a water melon, although at the time, it had seemed like an easy task as her rage had taken over, but now her arm was aching from all those heavy blows that had pulverised her head. She still worried she was going to hell – murder was a sin, right? But it was also a terrible wrong that Sofia had done to Oswald, having him shot, condemning him to a life of pain and suffering – and she had even laughed about it!

Polly concluded maybe she wasn't evil to have exacted revenge, but Sofia certainly was. As Father Francis had said, there are only shades of grey in a city like this one – and when all was said and done, Polly had been defending her own life and Oswald's. Sofia had planned to kill them both. There was no way she would have let her live once she had laughed and confessed to being the one behind Oswald's shooting...

After the paperweight was washed and put back on Oswald's desk, the task was done. The house had been cleaned up and there was no trace of anything out of place, not a single stain remaining, nothing to suggest a murder had happened here... _except for Sofia's car parked in the driveway._ Polly went out to the car, and found it locked.

“Shit!” she exclaimed, and hurried back into the house, then went down to the cellar and ignored the ache in her arms as she heaved open that heavy hatch once more.

She was _very_ careful of the steps. The thought that she might slip and tumble down into the sub basement and break her neck and lie dead on top of Sofia made her giggle, in a crazy sort of way - but when she reached the lower level, she felt sick. The enclosed space was smothering, the air was rising with the stink of blood and brains and she gagged as she searched Sofia's pockets, then ripped out the keys. She hurried back up the stairs, scrambled out of the hatch and closed it quickly, then she put the rug back in place and left the cellar, keenly dragging in a lungful of fresh air to chase away the stench of death. As long as that hatch stayed shut, the stink would stay down there with Sofia...

Polly hurried back outside, glancing up at the house but seeing no movement at any window. Oswald was still sleeping, heavily sedated thanks to his powerful pain meds. She unlocked the car, got in and drove away from the house. The blue skies had filled with clouds and it started to rain, that rain got heavy by the time she hit the highway as she drove on and the wipers dashed away rain only to be replaced with more as through the downpour, she looked ahead, wondering where the hell she could dump the car...

_He was going to kill you and me, Oswald_ , ran through Polly's mind as she left the highway, driving on to a spot where she rounded the turn on a quiet road, _I had no choice... and when she said it was her who arranged the hit, her who had caused you all that damage, I wanted to kill her! I had no choice anyway, it was me or her, you and me, or her..._

Those thoughts were still running through her head as she looked out at the rain lashed lake. It was deep, and it was deserted because the weather had turned bad, there was not a single soul in sight...

The rain was coming down harder, soaking her dress as her hair hung wet and the edge of the bank turned to sludge as her shoes slipped in grass and rain soaked earth. Polly had taken the car around to the tree-shaded side, to the deepest part of the lake. Her biggest fear was that she could slip as the car rolled, and fall in and be unable to claw her way back out, her fingers sliding through mud as she was pulled under with the sinking vehicle... But she took her chances and gave the car a shove. It rolled at speed down the steep bank, helped along by the mud that made the wheels gather speed as it rolled and slid and hit the water with a splash. She watched through the downpour as the car sank until only the roof was visible as rain battered down on it, until finally, it sunk deep into the depths, to land in a bed of underwater weeds, to become tangled in murky depths, hidden to stay that way.

_It was a long walk home._

Polly opened the door to the mansion as the afternoon saw the rain clouds fade out and the sunshine return. She stood there soaked to the skin, looking into the house, hearing the tick of the clock and smelling the familiar scent of wood polish and, more recently, the stuff she had put on the floor that was scented with lemons. It had shifted the blood and given the floor a lovely shine. She was cold and wet and her shoes were caked with mud. She took them off and went upstairs, aching to the bone, feeling weary and slightly numbed with the shock that was settling inside her to acknowledge that today, she had killed someone and got away with murder:

_It was self defence._

_I was protecting myself._

_I was protecting Oswald._

_I ought to feel remorse, but I don't._

_She deserved it..._

As those thoughts ran through her mind, she wanted to run to Oswald and hug him and weep and tell him everything. But she couldn't do it. He needed to know it had been Sofia who had arranged the hit when he had left jail. She had realised he wasn't helpless after all, and had come here today to kill him. Polly wanted to tell him everything – but not yet. Poor Ozzie was resting because he was in pain, he had cried that morning because he was so relieved he could finally make love, and he had suffered the consequences with the agony it had cost him. All of the pain in his life, all of his struggle and suffering had been caused by Sofia's plot to kill him – and she had _laughed_ about Oswald's pain! _Yes, she had deserved to die._

“Maybe I don't need to feel bad about this,” Polly muttered, making her away to the bathroom, where she stripped off her clothing and dumped her shoes and then took a warm shower to wash away the rain and the mud. She stood in the shower watching the last trace of the mud wash away down the drain, thinking about the satisfaction she had felt as that glass paperweight had smashed into Sofia's skull... Then she recalled car sinking into the water as the rain danced on its roof... every last trace was gone now... She turned off the water, grabbed a bathrobe and put it on, towel dried her hair and then went up the hallway and quietly opened the door to the main bedroom.

Oswald looked tired as he sat there in bed, resting with soft pillows behind him, but thankfully, he was not in pain now as he looked at her and smiled as his eyes sparkled with warmth.

“Good afternoon my dear!” he said fondly, “I apologise for sleeping in so late, but I feel so much better... and by the way, this morning was worth it. I have no regrets!”

She went over to the bed and sat down, as he reached for her she met his gaze and pushed aside all thoughts of what she had done as all she knew for certain was, they were both still alive because she had killed Sofia.

“I'm glad you're feeling better, Ozzie,” she said, and then they shared a kiss.

“All I have to do is think of you and I feel wonderful!” Oswald said brightly.

“It's you that makes life wonderful for me,” she told him, “And no one will ever take that from us, nothing will ever ruin what we have, Oswald.”

Pride shone in his gaze as he held her in his embrace.

“I don't know what I did in life to deserve your love, but I am thankful for it!” he told her.

She hugged him again, holding on tightly as she thought of the crazy events of the day. Ozzie was unharmed and they were together, everything was fine...

_Apart from the fact that there was now a body stinking up the sub basement, and she didn't know when or how to break the news to Oswald that she had killed Sofia Falcone today...._


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Oswald was in his study going over paperwork connected to the Lounge. It was Monday morning and his back was definitely improving, Polly was sure of it, because despite the pain he had felt after their lovemaking, he had been able to take her in his arms and make love to her again last night – and while the pain had throbbed afterwards, he had slept soundly all night and that morning, welcomed her help to head straight to the shower where the warm water had done its magic to chase away the last of the pain. Later he had limped to the elevator and gone downstairs, had breakfast in the dining room, and now he was in the study. It was good to see him walking more, and getting better at using his cane. He was off the painkillers that morning, too. Oswald's mood was good, he had mentioned maybe they should go for a drove later.

And as he said that, Polly had thought about the body in the sub basement. That place would stink terribly by now. She also thought about the fact that Sofia may have mentioned where she was going that day she had showed up at the house – people must be missing the head of the underworld by now...

That cold determined fire inside her, embodying her urge to protect Oswald, was rising again. _If anyone showed up here starting trouble, she couldn't let them hurt him. The man she loved had endured enough..._

As the sprinkler turned further down the lawn, Polly was sitting on the grass looking up at the tall hedge cut in the shape of a question mark. She thought again about how she had killed Sofia, as she wondered:

_Is this house cursed?  
No, that was a crazy thought._

_It wasn't the house, it was just that Ed had once committed a terrible crime here._

_And now she had killed Sofia and dumped the body in the sub basement, another murder in this house..._

_No, it wasn't the Riddle House._

_She couldn't blame bricks and mortar for such dark deeds._

_Oswald had lived here since leaving Blackgate, and he was making a great recovery from the shooting, and they had fallen in love... Hardly the influence of an evil house._

She was still sitting there in the sunshine, lost in her thoughts when a shadow cast over her.

“ _Penny for 'em?”_

She gave a gasp, turning her head and looking up to see Ed Nygma standing over her. Polly got up quickly and took a step back, hit by the horror of what he had done here so long ago, and remembering she had to pretend she knew nothing about the time in his life when he had become a full blown maniac...

“Sorry, what?”

“Your thoughts? A penny for your thoughts, I was merely asking why you seemed to be drifted away into a world of your own.”

He smiled. She glanced to the house and then back at Ed as she wished she wasn't caught like this, out here alone with him. He could do _anything_ to her and Oswald wouldn't know, wouldn't hear her cries for help...

_But Oswald had said Ed would never harm her._

_She just had to hope he was right about that..._

“I was just thinking what a great garden this is,” she lied, and Ed looked about the garden and smiled fondly.

“Oh, the memories I have of this place in the old days!”

He gave a sigh. He had said that so whimsically, as if yearning for the good old days and fond memories.

 _Fond memories of what he had done to Tabitha?_  
She felt her stomach churn and was thankful for the sweet scent of the garden as she took a deep breath to counteract a mix of unease and deep disgust.

“Do you have a lot of good memories of this place, Ed?”

He looked slowly about the garden, then up at the house, and then back at Polly as his gaze settled on her.

“The past is a funny thing, Polly... sometimes you can look back and the dark times can be too much to bear. Other times, you remember the _good_ parts...”

He was still looking at her too intently as a smile twitched about his mouth, and she really didn't want to ask what he considered _the good parts_ to be.

“Is Ozzy up yet?” he asked.

“He's in the study,” she replied quickly, and he turned and walked away towards the open door as she breathed a relieved sigh to know that finally, he would be talking with Oswald. Which meant she wouldn't have to be alone with him again... As she turned towards the house, she took the back route in, planning to stay in the kitchen and make coffee and then place it in the study for their visitor and swiftly retreat once more. As she took the path that led along the side of the house, the shadow of the question mark hedge hung over her, tall and dark as if it followed.

Ed and Oswald were in the study, and Oswald had just greeted Ed with a smile as he said, _I have some news for you._

“What is it?” Ed asked.

Oswald took a deep breath, his eyes sparkling with joy.

“I'm seeing Polly!” he announced.

“ _Oh.”_

Ed's smile faded, then as he tried and failed to contain his anger, he glared at him.

“You don't mean... you can't be...”

“Ed, I'm _happy!_ Why can't you be happy for me? It's been years since I was close to anyone, I'd come to accept the fact that I would always be alone and what we have is precious! I am thankful for her love!”

“ _But, Polly?”_ he fumed, and then he paced the floor.

“Oswald, we barely know her – yes, I said I thought she was trustworthy, but that doesn't mean...” he stopped pacing and turned to him sharply, “Maybe she's after your money! Maybe -”

Oswald gave a sigh as disappointment reflected in his blue gaze.

“Ed, I'm not a fool. I _know_ when love is real! You were right about me trusting her – and I know I'm right about how we feel for one another. I may have lost a lot over the years, but my judgement of others has not been affected. I love her, and she adores me. Please be happy for me!”

Ed paused for thought, and then his expression softened.

“If you're happy, and you're right to trust her -”

“You know I am -”

Oswald stopped right there, seeing Polly standing there in the doorway. Ed turned to her and looked at her intently.

“You're seeing Oswald? That was... unexpected. But...” he glanced from Polly to his best friend, “I suppose I should be pleased to hear this news. I just hope this new found happiness lasts. Love is precious. I know what it's done for my life. I would hate to see anything go wrong.”

“It won't,” Polly said, and then she walked over to the desk, joined Oswald and put her arm around him.

“You can trust me, Ed.”

He looked back at her, thinking thoughts he didn't care to share out loud, and then he nodded.

“I guess I can. _I should,_ ” he concluded, “You're both happy. I do need to accept that.”

“You have no reason not to,” Oswald replied, and Polly caught something in the way he had said that, perhaps it suggested this conversation was about more than him telling Ed they were together – but then, the moment was broken as Oswald spoke up again.

“Well, our business is concluded for the day. Will you stay for lunch?”

“No, I should be going now,” Ed replied, and then, still thinking on the news that Oswald and Polly were together, as that all sunk in slowly, he suddenly recalled another matter and spoke again.

“By the way,” he said Oswald, “I saw Jim this morning – he called at the house to say they were closing the case on Tabby Galavan, after all these years!” he chuckled, “I still recall all that fuss about her being here for the party and then going missing – she wasn't missing for three years, it was two –but I guess you and me saw that differently. All that fuss over her last being seen here at the house... and now, they're saying case closed, she's presumed dead. _Of course she's dead._..”

Oswald had visibly stiffened. As she stood there with her arm around him, Polly felt his shoulders go tight as he glared at Ed to convey a silent _Shut up!_

_But Ed was still talking._

“What difference does it make, two or three years?” he added, “Who gives a damn about the bitch who killed your mother anyway? Let's hope she's rotting _quietly_ away somewhere.”

Polly felt her throat go tight as Ed met her gaze.

“Sorry about this,” he said to her, “Tabby was the person who killed Oswald's mother, she happened to stop by here before she went missing and over the years, the GCPD have looked back into it, but now they've concluded it's time to close the case. It's about time, too. We never laid a hand on her!”

Oswald looked down at the table.

“See you soon, Ed. Give my love to Lee and the kids,” he said quietly.

Ed paused, realising that maybe, he had said too much in front of Polly – Oswald always warned him, _never_ talk about _that_ in front of anyone... But what did Polly know? Nothing, he decided, Oswald wouldn't share THAT secret with her...

“See you soon, both of you,” he said, and then he smiled briefly and turned away, heading for the front door.

Oswald was still silent even after the door had closed and Ed's car had started up to leave the driveway. Polly walked around to the other side of the desk and looked at him.

_He did not look at her._

His head was down, focusing on the polished surface as he got lost in his own thoughts.

“Oswald...”

“I won't be needing my painkillers today,” Oswald said, and as he reached for a bottle to pour a drink, she noticed his hand trembled.

“Oswald!”

“Yes, my dear?”

He had said that too quietly. And she had heard all Ed had just said, and the fact that he wouldn't look at her worried her greatly:

_Was there more?_

“What did Ed mean, two years or three? She was missing for three years, the cops were looking for her – and he said two or three... that you didn't count it as three? What's going on, Oswald? Is there something I don't know about?”

He took a stiff drink and finally met her gaze. Her heart missed a beat as she saw something there in his eyes that could only read as guilt. _What the hell had he done that she didn't know about?_

Oswald leaned on the desk and grabbed his cane, then got up and paused to take in a sharp breath before limping over to a seat by the window.

“Sit with me,” he said, sitting down heavily as she walked over to join him, and then he grasped her hand.

“Ed abducted Tabby on the night she turned up at the house with Sofia's offer. The next day, he called me to say he had a surprise for me. He said he had abducted Tabby and she was in the sub basement, she was tied up and I could go down there and take revenge for my Mother's death. He suggested the two of us torture her and make it slow. I just wanted to see her imprisoned and helpless. I wanted her to beg for her life before I slit her worthless throat. But then...” Oswald hesitated, pain reflecting in his eyes as he looked at her, knowing it was time for complete honesty, spelling out the facts he had never wanted to repeat:

“ _She didn't just beg for her life. She made me an offer.”_

Polly felt utterly confused. Oswald looked deeply distressed, as distressed as he felt at choosing to make such a confession.

“An offer?”

He nodded, thinking back to Tabby, distraught and terrified after seeing Ed build a cage for her:

_It was satisfying to see fear in the eyes of the woman who had killed his mother, as Oswald stood over her with the tip of his dagger pressing just hard enough to her throat to draw a single drop of blood that ran down her neck as she looked up at him, desperately begging him to stop._

“ _Please Oswald, don't do this!” she begged, “You have the underworld – you have everything!”_

“ _But I do not have my Mother!” he said coldly as he leaned closer, watching her squirm as he made another small cut as a second streak of blood ran down her throat._

_Tabby was shaking and tied to the chair where she sat, there was a pool of urine on the floor beneath her, as soon as she had seen Oswald limp into the basement with the blade in his hand, she had pissed herself. She knew what was coming, Penguin and Riddler had her now, and she had no hope of escape... But then she had said something that made Oswald draw back the blade._

“ _I can make amends! You don't have everything, you have no heir to inherit all that you own, think about it, all that power, all going to the next gang boss who wins the fight when you're gone – unless you have an heir! A life for a life, Oswald? I'll give you that heir!”_

_She looked up at him, trembling as blood ran from her neck and the wounds shone like two tiny punctures, almost as if she had been bitten by a vampire._

“ _Please, Oswald! A life for a life, and then let me go!”_

_He drew back the knife and looked at her thoughtfully._

“ _Done,” he had stated..._

Back in the present moment, so much more ran through his mind as he looked at Polly, silently recalling the rest: 

_Ed using his medical knowledge to inseminate Tabitha with his best friend's sperm. The months Tabby had spent locked away in an upstairs room heavily guarded. Ed had delivered the baby in that same room, while Oswald had stood outside, listening to her screams. He had not once gone into that room to comfort her, instead taking a walk downstairs where he leaned on his cane and looked up at his Mother's picture as Tabby's screams echoed about the house again..._

_A short while later, Oswald entered the bedroom and went over to Tabby's bedside. She was holding their child in her arms as tears streaked her face and as he looked at the baby, Oswald wanted to weep with joy. But instead he carefully reached for the child and took her from Tabby's arms._

“ _Now you know how it feels to have the one most precious taken from you!” was all he said, and as he turned his back, he heard her weeping, as a smile came to his face and he looked down at the beautiful child in his arms, his precious daughter. He took her downstairs, stood before Mother's portrait and looked up at her._

“ _Your grandchild,” he said proudly, “What shall we call her, Mother?”_

_Then his gaze had fallen on the brooch decorated with pearls she wore in the painting and smiled._

“ _I shall name her Pearl! It is as if you have named her yourself, Mother!”_

_Then he looked down, smiling at his precious baby daughter..._

Oswald pushed away thoughts of the past as he gave Polly's hand a squeeze and let go, hoping she would understand and still love him when he had finished explaining.

“I suppose back then, after all the people I'd killed on my way to claiming my right as king of Gotham, I was something of a monster in my own way. Tabby pleaded for her life and then she said, if I let her go free, she would give me the one thing I didn't have – an heir. I was powerful but lonely and she was desperate to live, the woman who killed my mother in cold blood... a life for a life. That was the deal. She was inseminated artificially, I had no urge to lay a hand on her after what she had done! And she became pregnant and we kept her here at the house for nine months, then I took the baby from her arms and walked away. I told Ed to give her time to recover and then to let her go, on the understanding that if she kept her mouth shut she could see her daughter when she was grown up. That was my understanding of what would happen....”

“But it went wrong?” she whispered as she looked at Oswald, shocked by all he had said.

He nodded slowly.

“Yes, it went very wrong, Polly. Gangland troubles flared up so Ed offered to take my daughter to another of his homes, and he hired a nanny... The two years that followed were turbulent, the underworld was at war on and off and she was safe with Ed...”

Polly had just realised.

“Pearl-”

“Pearl Nygma is my daughter,” Oswald confirmed as sorrow reflected in his gaze, “But I never got a chance to raise her. When the troubles were over, two years had passed by, in that time I'd stopped by to see my daughter often – but she wasn't living at the Riddle House, she was in the care of the nanny. Ed had been spending more and more time here and when I went down the basement that day and I found Tabby...” he blinked away tears and drew in a shaken breath, “I was devastated! I still recall the day after I took our child from her, I'd told her she would be free to go soon, but she had begged me, _Don't leave me alone with that maniac!_ She must have known right from the start that Ed had no intention of ever letting her leave this house. And I had walked away thinking she just need time to accept that soon she would be free and she would have to learn to live without her child. But Ed had not stuck to the agreement. He told me he let her go, three weeks after the birth.”

“But he didn't,” added Polly in a hushed voice.

“He did not,” Oswald agreed sadly, “He kept her in the basement in that cage for two years... when I found her, I can't even begin into speak of what he had done to her...it was...” he shook his head again as he blinked as a tear streaked his face and emotion shook in his voice, _“Even Tabitha, after what she did to Mother, even she did not deserve what Ed had put her though! I held her as I injected her. I kissed her brow as she passed away in my arms. I stroked her hair, I wept for her, the woman who killed my mother! I still have compassion, Polly. Maybe I was a monster – but not like the monster Ed had become!”_

Polly reached for him, but he straightened up in his seat and took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

“I was busy with underworld matters soon after Pearls birth – violence was blowing up in the city and Ed took Pearl to stay with him, he hired a nanny to care for her when he was out. He was spending a lot of time here at the Riddle House. _Now I know why._ After I confronted him about what he did to Tabby, Ed went down into a spiral of madness. I feared for his life, and I was the one who made the call that saw him put away in Arkham for several months. In that time I grew closer to Pearl, the troubles in the city died out and life was returning to normal. Ed came out of Arkham and seemed to be much improved – I didn't tell them what he had done to Tabby, I was just thankful his tortured mind was closer to sanity now... But then I was arrested for crimes in war time and Ed was forced to keep custody of Pearl. He raised her as his own daughter. To this day, she doesn't know I'm her father – and I shall never tell her, because Ed was a father to her when I could not be. But he often brought her to see me and that's why she calls me Uncle Ozzie.”

He looked at her pleadingly.

“I know what I did was a terrible revenge, Polly. But I didn't know Ed had his own plans for Tabby! You must hate me after all I've said...”

Her heart was aching for Oswald. The whole situation was terrible, but Ozzie had not known about Ed keeping Tabby. He could barely talk about that part without breaking down.

“No, I don't hate you, I love you!” she reminded him.

As she grasped his hand and gave it a squeeze, he looked down at it, managing a smile as he blinked away more tears.

“And that is how I know you truly love me,” he said, “Even something as terrible as this has not changed your mind about me. You will never know how thankful I am that you could love me despite all I've done.”

“It was Ed who made her truly suffer,” Polly concluded, “You made a deal with her – it was her deal! It's not your fault Ed decided to keep her prisoner. You didn't know.”

“I honestly thought the cage was gone and he was keeping weapons down there,” Oswald replied, “You see, I trusted my best friend. I hadn't allowed for the fact that he had gone completely insane.”

“You're not to blame for his actions,” she said softly, and then she put her arms around him as he welcomed her embrace, resting his head on her shoulder as he wept again.

It was mid afternoon by the time Oswald felt recovered from bringing up the dark past that had made him weep. But Polly had made lunch and they had sat in the garden together as she had turned the conversation towards the future, as they talked about plans for what to do and where to go as he moved on with his recovery. He was still nervous about going out and about too much in the city. He still didn't want anyone to know just how well he was doing. So they decided on a quiet drive out of town, into the countryside.

_It was Oswald who suggested the lake._

She thought of the car she had dumped there as her guts went tight, but then she agreed, after all, that car had sunk and wouldn't be showing up again any time soon...

Oswald had stiffened and sucked in a breath as he got comfortable in the passenger seat, but he rested his cane beside him and there was a sparkle to his eyes as he looked at Polly and said that maybe, he would try to take a short walk with her in the woods. She had smiled too at the thought of making love to Oswald out in the open air, just the two of them together as the sunlight fell through the gaps in the trees as they lay surrounded by woodland flowers. She had a blanket in the back of the car. She was planning to lay that down, then help Ozzie to lie back while she sucked his cock slowly and gently. She would make sure the hard ground beneath them didn't hurt his back, she had everything planned so carefully...

And then they arrived and drove around to the shaded area where the forest began. They were approaching the turn that led to their destination when her eyes went wide and she brought the car to a stop, Oswald looked too and saw police cars parked up and the wide area taped off as a car was dragged from the lake...

“That looks like Sofia Falcone's car!” Oswald exclaimed.

Polly felt her throat go tight: 

_They had found the car?_

“We shouldn't be around here,” she said anxiously, reversing the car and starting back the way they came in, “It wouldn't be good for you to be seen around here if that is her car!”

“It looked empty,” Oswald replied, “I wonder if she's been murdered?”

“Who knows? She's the head of the underworld, and from what I heard, not a well liked leader... so maybe she is dead.”

They drove away, heading back towards the road. Oswald was still calmly thinking about the possibility that someone had bumped off Sofia, while Polly said nothing, gripping the wheel with sweating palms as she focused on the road, hoping she had left no prints inside that car. It had been raining on the night she dumped it in the lake and she had wiped the car down with her wet sleeve before getting out. She had wiped the door handle, too. The keys were out of the vehicle, no doubt sunk forever in the mud at the bottom of the lake. But all the same, the fear of being caught was heavy. Much heavier than her regret on killing Sofia:

 _She deserved it,_ she told her self as they drove home, _She was going to kill me and then kill Oswald. I had no choice...And I have no regrets..._

On arriving back at the house, Oswald said he felt stiff from the journey, and needed help to get out of the car. She put her arm around him as they went inside and he limped towards the elevator. As it rose to the first floor, he leaned against her and as she met his gaze, she saw no trace of concern in his eyes at the thought that Sofia might be dead.

“Perhaps if she is gone at last, and if Tetch soon follows, I will be able to stake a claim where I belong once more,” Oswald said as the doors opened and he limped out of the elevator. They stopped walking as Polly looked at him in alarm.

“You want to go back to running the underworld? After everything you've been through, Oswald? I was hoping we could have a quiet life together - a life where you're safe!”

He blinked as surprise registered in his gaze.

“You misunderstand, my dear. These days the power is shared out more equally. With Sofia and Tetch gone, there would be room for a few more of us to step in and reclaim certain aspects of the running of this city. There would be no more kingpin ruling over everything – just fair shares, and people united for a common cause – keeping the darker side of this town functioning harmoniously. And my role would be small. I have no desire to open myself up to huge risk, not now, Polly.”

His words had eased her fears, clearly Oswald knew what he would do if he had the chance – but for now, all that mattered was the fact that they were home and safe and the cops had not spotted them driving up to the lake, all eyes had been on that car as it was dragged from the water. The conversation ended there because Oswald urgently needed the bathroom, she kept her arm around him as he hurried to the bedroom and through the doorway that led to the toilet, and he managed to get his pants down before the flow of urine started, as he gave a sigh of relief. This was a real achievement, and proof that Pearl was right, there was room for improvement in all ways now he was walking more and working at his recovery. And Pearl had been his doctor since the shooting. His daughter had been taking great care of her Uncle Ozzie, not knowing he was actually her father... The love and fondness between them had been clear. Polly wished as a passing thought that Oswald could tell her the truth, and decided maybe to raise that with him later. He and Pearl needed to enjoy a father-daughter relationship, she felt sure of it. Oswald limped out of the bathroom and sat down on the bed, then as she joined him and knelt on the floor to help him take off his shoes, he looked down at her with a sparkle in his eyes.

“I'm feeling adventurous!” Oswald announced.

Oswald's idea of _adventurous_ had been something that had taken her by surprise. He had pulled her into his arms and kissed her and then said, _I want to fuck you in the ass!_ She had blinked and then looked at him for a moment, thinking of her small, tight hole and his big cock... She wanted to try it, but felt hesitant.

“Are you sure you know what you're doing?” she asked.

Oswald chuckled.

“Very much so, Polly! I love anal. I And I want to enter you every way possible. You can trust me, I won't hurt you.”

_She did trust him._

As she knelt on the bed and he stroked lubricant on her ass, she tensed, and his softly spoken words put her at ease. Feeling his finger go inside was exquisite, and after a few careful in and out movements, he slid a second finger in as she gave a moan, her clit aching and her pussy running with fluid as her thighs became sticky. She could feel her hole opening up, slowly stretching as he moved his fingers in and out then added more lube and slowly scissored them apart as he stretched her further.

_He didn't rush._

He played with her ass for more than an hour, opening her up as he urged her _not_ to touch herself yet...

Oswald had cast off all nervousness as he stroked lube over the condom that covered his cock, as she knelt there aching to come and nervous about the moment his cock, his _big_ cock, entered her ass. She was wondering if she could take him, he was well endowed and she was expecting this to hurt.

It did hurt, but only for a moment as the head of his cock entered her tightness, then he pushed a little deeper and leaned a hand on the bed to ease the pain in his leg as he stood here and she was kneeling with her ass lined up to his cock and him half inside her as he paused to wait for the stretching sensation, waiting for her body to accept this. Then he shifted position, taking the weight off his crippled leg, placing both hands on her hips as he he looked down at his hardness, halfway inside her.

“Rub your clit,” he said softly, “You will enjoy it better if you do that.”

She slid a hand between her legs, fingers finding her swollen clit and as she started to rub, he pushed all the way inside as she gave a moan.

“Is that alright?”

“Yes!” she panted.

He slowly and carefully began to fuck her, the tightness of her ass was pulling him fast towards climax and it was hard to hold back as her hand moved desperately between her legs as she rubbed hard at her clit. He thrust a little harder, faster, as her legs began to shake and he knew he couldn't hold on much longer. He thrust a few more times as she screamed his name and her whole body shook as he fucked her harder, and the last firm thrust took him over the edge as he felt her ass squeezing his cock, he was pumping hot and quickly, filling up the condom with semen as she trembled and moaned and her climax faded out. Oswald withdrew from her breathing hard as she collapsed on the bed, wiped out by the orgasm.

“Did I blow your mind?” he asked as he disposed of the condom and then sat down, feeling a pain in his back, but he could live with that. What they had just shared had been wonderful, something a few weeks back he would have even thought impossible, too.

“I didn't hurt you?”

He looked concerned as he said that, climbing back on to the bed and taking her in his arms. Her face was flushed and her pupils still dilated from the force of that climax as she embraced him, as they lay side by side and she started to smile.

“No, I'm okay. That was so good!”

As he looked at her, the emotion that washed over him was almost too much to bear.

“I want to be with you for the rest of my life!” he said.

“And I wouldn't want to be anywhere else!” she assured him.

They shared a kiss and then they rested together for a while as the summer breeze came in through the window. As they lay together, Polly thought about the secret she had kept from him. And Oswald had kept nothing from her. He had told her everything, even the painful truth about Pearl... She owed him honesty, too...

_She had to tell him about Sofia._

Polly looked into his eyes, placing a hand on his hip as he smiled fondly.

“ _Oswald,”_ she said carefully, hoping this would not destroy all they shared, _“I have something to tell you...”_


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again readers!  
> Here is the final chapter of The Riddle House.  
> Get ready for a big twist.  
> Here comes the conclusion!  
> I will be back soon with a new fic - Part 9 of my Gotham saga His Irish Angel  
> Love Davina x

Chapter 8

As Polly hesitated, Oswald regarded her patiently as they lay together, his pale blue eyes full of understanding.

“ _I killed Sofia Falcone.”_

Oswald's eyes went wide.

“What?” he said in a hushed voice.

Her gaze was filled with apology as she blinked away tears, holding him a little tighter as he stared at her and the shock sunk in.

“She turned up at the house a couple of days ago and she said she suspected... _something_ , that maybe you were a lot better recovered than she was led to believe – that you could be a threat to her empire! She took out a knife and she grabbed me and said she was going to kill you and then I smashed her head in! She's in the sub basement, I dumped the body down there.”

Oswald drew back from her, sitting up quickly as pain cut through his back and he ignored it, still shocked at her news. She sat up too, looking at him pleadingly.

“ _I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen, but I had to protect us both, she was going to kill you -”_

He held up his hand for silence as he looked intently at her.

“Enough, my dear - I understand. But please, just confirm, this was two days ago?”

She nodded.

“And had she shared her suspicions with anyone else?”

“I don't think so.”

“Did she tell anyone where she was going on the day she came to the house?”

Polly shook her head.

“She didn't say so, why?”

Oswald reached for his phone.

“I'm very thankful you told me,” he said as he called Ed's number, “Because we need to be sure we're ready for trouble!”

Oswald got out of bed, reaching for his robe as he left the phone on the night stand on loud speaker as it rang and kept on ringing.

“Oswald?” Ed sounded tired as he picked up.

“Listen Ed,” Oswald said as he tied his dressing gown and then picked up the phone, “Sofia is dead. Apparently she came over here two days ago intending to kill me and thankfully Polly was here to stop her. But we have to assume someone must have known where Sofia was going, and they must have missed her by now. Call Pearl, be sure she doesn't go into work today - she needs to get out of the city until its safe to return. And tell Lee to take the kids out of Gotham today too, this morning, until this is over – and then meet me here at the house.”

“Wow...” Ed sounded shocked, “I guess if they suspect you, I'm in the frame too,” he replied, “Okay, I'll talk to Lee and I'll make sure her and the kids are out of town until this blows over. I'll be with you by ten am.”

“See you at ten,” Oswald replied, “And by the way, Ed – don't forget your gun. We have to assume the worst for now.”

“I'm aware of that,” said Ed, sounding tense, then he ended the call.

Oswald turned around to see Polly standing there with tears in her eyes.

“ _I am so sorry -”_

“Don't be!” Oswald assured her as he put an arm around her and pulled her closer, “She would have killed me and then killed you and sent her people over to Ed's place next!”

Oswald leaned hard on his cane as he limped over to the wardrobe, pausing to rest for a moment as pain registered on his face.

“Help me get dressed,” he said urgently as Polly joined him, “We have work to do!”

Oswald made more phone calls after he got dressed. While he was on the phone, Polly was pacing the floor as worry twisted her guts. Oswald was still in his study as she waited in the kitchen with that cellar door wide open as she wondered how the hell he could get down the stairs to the first lower level, let alone climb down into the sub basement. He would have to help her haul that stinking corpse up two flights of stairs...

“I'm sorry, Oswald!” she said in a hushed voice as she looked to the open door and the dim light below as the stairway down into that dark and terrible place beckoned.

And then a heavy knocking sounded at the front door, it carried down the hallway, echoing as she turned her head, instantly hit with a feeling of dread: That was not Ed's knock...

Oswald had heard it too. He tried to get up and pain seared down his back, as he sat back down breathing hard. As Polly ran in, he was breaking into a sweat as he loaded up a gun and slipped it into his pocket.

“I think we may have to take a chance,” he said, “Her people know nothing for sure – this could be just a house call to make enquiries. I shall wait in the study -”

That heavy knocking sounded again.

“ - And you must answer the door, pretend nothing is amiss.”

Polly nodded slowly, then she left the study and as her heart thudded, she made her way to the front door.

“I need to speak with Oswald,” said the tall man in the dark suit who wore a pocket watch, “My name is Jervis Tetch and I seek answers regarding Sofia's visit to this house. She has disappeared!”

Polly looked over at the car parked in the driveway. In that car sat four armed men. She stepped back and Tetch walked in. She had just remembered the cellar door was open – but he wouldn't be going into the kitchen, he said he had come to see Oswald...

“You can wait in the front room, Mr Tetch,” she said, “This way,” and as she walked off, he walked alongside her, looking about the house with a suspicious eye.

“Such a mystery to solve...” Tetch added as they went into the front room and he opened up his pocket watch and glanced down at it thoughtfully, “But perhaps, easier than it seems to be resolved. Please, before we bother Oswald, let's sit and talk this over – I have a few questions for you.”

As he sat down he held up that watch and its ticking was strangely mesmerising, it took effort to tear her gaze from it, but she did as she recalled Tetch was known for his powers of hypnosis.

“Of course, but first, allow me to get you a drink.”

“I would prefer you to sit.”

“I have my orders, all guests must be made welcome,” she forced a smile then crossed the room to pour Tetch a shot of whiskey.

“Hurry up with that drink,” he said as he sat on a high backed arm chair with his back to her, “I need to ask a few questions, and starting with the staff seems like the best bet. That way I shall know if Oswald needs to be removed from the situation or not.”

As he said that, he turned the watch over in his hand.

“What time did Sofia leave this house?”

“I really don't know,” she replied, “I don't recall her visiting.”

Polly was right behind him now. He gestured to the seat on front of him.

“Come here and sit down, please. You will answer my questions under hypnosis to ensure honesty, or the men outside will come in and force you to do as I request.”

“And what if I refuse?”

He laughed.

“You're really not in a position to -”

He gave a gasp. Then he started to choke and her hand was still on that release button as she stood behind his chair and held the handle to his neck, sliding the blade straight in. Now blood was running from his mouth and he was coughing and choking as she drew out Sofia's blade and a spray hit the wall marking it crimson. The knife was dripping scarlet, her dress was spattered, the wall was spotted with a dash of crimson in a wide arc and Tetch had just stopped choking as he slumped dead in the seat and the blood carried on running, pooling on the tiled floor as he bled out.

Polly gave a gasp as the door opened. Oswald stared at the sight of Tetch dead on the seat and blood up the wall and on the floor as Polly stood there, splashed red with a blade in her hand.

“He was going to hypnotise me,” she said as her voice trembled, “Then decide whether to kill you or not. So I decided there was only one thing to do. Now we have to handle the guys out the front, he has four gunmen waiting in the car.”

Oswald's face paled. He held the gun in his hand a little firmer as determination set cold in his gaze.

“I will handle this. Stay here, those men have orders – if he doesn't leave the house soon, they will most likely come in.”

Oswald leaned hard on his cane and his steps were slow and painful as he made his way out to the hallway. Polly pressed the button as the blade retracted back into the handle, and a few final drops of blood hit the floor, then she hurried out, catching up with Oswald.

“I can't let you face this alone!”

“And I refuse to put you at risk!”

“But I started it, I caused this mess!” Polly's eyes were filled with tears. Oswald's gaze reflected nothing but understanding and appreciation.

“You did it to save me – twice!” he reminded her, “How could I blame you for saving my life, or following the urge to protect me, to lash out at my enemies out of love for me? Polly, I'm honoured to know you care for me so deeply, as I love you too! Now please stay back in case they start shooting through the windows. I really don't want you to get hurt.”

Oswald limped closer to the door, pausing by a lace net covered window as he kept tight to the wall, taking a peek outside. As he did that Polly was close behind him, and she saw Oswald's expression change, and then he chuckled.

”Open the door, Polly!”

She looked at him in confusion as she stood there with a murder weapon in her pocket and her clothing splashed with blood.

“They might kill us, Oswald!”

“I don't think they will be doing anything any more, Polly!”

Amusement danced in his gaze as he unlocked the door and opened it wide. As he limped out to the porch, she joined him and gave a gasp:

All four gunmen were slumped dead in their seats with bullets to the head.

“But how -”

That question was answered right away as the killer took the silencer off his gun then slipped the weapon and the silencer into the pocket of his green suit jacket.

“It was a quick, clean kill,” said Ed with a smile, then he looked at Polly, who was splashed with blood.

“Eww, messy!” he exclaimed.

Oswald limped back inside, then over to a seat placed by the wall and sank gratefully into it, keen to stop the pain in his leg from worsening as his back started to throb again.

“I propose we wait for the bodies to be disposed of, say nothing about Tetch or Sofia disappearing, and when the dust settles we can start making negotiation to reclaim our seats at the ruling table. The underworld needs us, Edward.”

He nodded in agreement.

“This has been long over due,” he agreed, “It's not like we've never talked about this day arriving, we just didn't expect it to happen so soon.”

“All problems are inevitably resolved in the end,” Oswald said as triumph shone in his eyes.

“They certainly are!” Ed replied brightly.

As the two men spoke, Polly looked on in dismay.

“You already had plans for when Tetch and Sofia were gone?”

“We would have taken them out ourselves in a year or so,” Oswald told her, “But I didn't expect trouble to start up so soon, and I certainly didn't expect you to resolve it, my dear.”

“You did a good job, but it was messy,” Ed concluded as he looked at her standing there spattered with blood, “First kills often are.”

She looked down at her clothing, feeling utter despair as she recalled killing Sofia, then Tetch. And she would have backed Oswald all the way if Ed hadn't got there first, she would have helped him kill those men in the car if she had to, if Oswald needed her help...She was a killer. Had love turned her into this?

“What's wrong with me?” she said as tears filled her eyes.

Oswald had taken his phone from his pocket.

“I need to call Victor, he has to come over and clear away the bodies,” he explained, “I would like you to go outside and talk to Ed.”

She stared at him.

“But...”

It was all she could say as she gave him a look, trying to silently convey she didn't want to be left alone with Ed Nygma, who had done terrible things and stared at her in a way that made her blood run cold...

“Please?” Oswald said softly, “Just talk to Edward outside, while I call Victor.”

Ed had already gone back outside.

“ _I don't want to be alone with him!”_ she whispered.

“Ed will never harm you,” Oswald assured her, “And I'm on the phone, I have arrangements to make – please, wait outside.”

Polly gave a heavy sigh. She heard Oswald say _Sorry Victor, but_ _Sofia's in the sub basement – yes, I know it's going to stink down there,_ and then she went outside as he carried on talking.

It was weird standing there on the porch, her in a blood soaked dress and a car full of dead henchmen parked up nearby as Ed stood there looking at her intently. She thought of what he had done to Tabby and it made her blood run cold.

“You may as well know,” she said in a low voice, “Oswald told me what you did to Tabitha Galavan. _And I've seen the way you stare at me_.”

“What? You think I'd – Oh no...”

Ed looked and sounded genuinely dismayed as he thought about what she was implying and for a brief moment his hand flew to his mouth as he tried to hide the fact he had just gagged at the thought of it.

“I would never...” he took a quick breath, fighting off nausea.

“ _I would never harm you. I don't mean to stare, Polly. I just don't know what to say to you!”_

“Why would you want to say anything to me?” she took a step back as the sun shone down making the blood on her clothing start to dry and the whole porch stink like an abattoir.

Ed hesitated, he looked at her again and this time she saw a struggle in his expression, as he looked at her intently, then awkwardly, and finally, he gave a shrug.

“Oswald said you should talk to me. He didn't want to be the one to intervene, he said it should rightly come from me and I guess it should...” he took a step closer. Her back was to the wall of the porch as she stiffened, looking up at him as her eyes widened.

“What's going on?”

_And then it happened._

_Ed Nygma told her everything._

“I wish I could say I loved your mother. I wish I could say that what we had was the greatest love of our lives – but that would be a lie. She caught my show a few times. We dated for a couple of weeks. _And she didn't want you to know your father was the man known as Riddler, who was manipulated by a chip inside his head to cause the Haven explosion_.”

He was still looking at her. Not staring, now she could see why he was so damned awkward around her – she had not known, and he didn't know how to tell her... It all fit into place, too. Her mother had always refused to talk about her father...

“I'm nothing like you!” she exclaimed as she looked at Ed.

“That's what I thought too,” he agreed.

“I don't even like riddles!” she added.

“I realise this is a shock -”

“A shock?” she repeated, “Oh, it's so much more than that, Ed! And I really didn't need to hear this at a time when I'm … I'm...”

She thought about the paperweight smashing a hole in Sofia's skull as brains and blood spattered the room, then about how she had slipped that knife into the neck of Jervis Tetch and done so without a single hesitant thought. All that had burned in her mind was the urge to protect the one she loved... And she knew she would do it again if she had to. It didn't even bother her that four corpses were slumped close by in the car while they stood here having this conversation, they had been a threat to Oswald. She would have killed them herself if she got the chance...

She shook her head.

“I don't understand myself. I'm going through this phase of...”

“Killing people?” he said kindly, and then he smiled.

“And there I am! _There I am, Polly!_ That's how you take after me!”

“I would never have held someone prisoner in a basement and -”

“But you would kill for Oswald, because you love him.”

She nodded slowly. There was no point denying it.

“I'd give my life for Oswald!”

“And that is how we are the same,” said Ed.

She slowly shook her head as she saw rejection in his eyes.

“I'm _nothing_ like you!”

“I admit what I did to Tabitha was extreme,” Ed told her, “but she killed Oswald's mother, Polly! She killed her in cold blood! And what kind of person offers a child as a bargaining chip? Tabby was happy to hand over her kid in exchange for her life! Why should she have walked away and been free to carry on as she did before when Gertrud was cold in the ground and Oswald's life was devastated? I took revenge. I took it in my own way, in my own time. We all have our own reason to kill and our chosen methods, don't you agree, Polly?”

As she looked at him, she thought about the satisfaction she had felt at killing Sofia after she had admitted being behind Oswald's shooting, then the rage she had felt at knowing Tetch would have killed Oswald, had she not driven that knife into his neck...

“My kills were clean.”

“And that's your choice,” Ed replied, “But you're still a killer, you're my daughter and _nothing_ about murder should shock you, _not_ when you're standing there with blood on your hands!”

She looked down at her hands, sticky with the blood of Jervis Tetch.

“ _Excuse me, I have to fetch a corpse from the basement. You must be Polly.”_

As Ed stepped back she turned to see they had been joined by a stranger. Ed made the introductions.

“Polly, this is Victor Zsasz, Victor, this is -”

“Your daughter Polly!” he said turning to her, “I'd know you without an introduction – sure you're Ed's daughter, I can tell by the blood spatter...”

Her jaw dropped, and she was sure she could have thought of something to say to that, but then he was gone inside the house and Oswald rose from his seat.

“Victor, it's so good to see you. The bodies are in the study and the sub basement.”

“And four more and a vehicle to lose outside. Don't worry, boss – it's under control,” Victor replied.

Outside, Polly was still standing on the porch, looking to the man who was her father – Edward Nygma, maniac and multiple killer...

_But he was also a good father to his kids._

_And he loved his wife._

_And he had not done anything so vile since the killing of Tabitha Galavan and that had been so long ago..._

_He was also loyal to Oswald._

She was thinking hard now as it dawned on her that maybe, she had no right to judge his methods of execution when she had no problem with him killing four armed men outside in the car who would have come in and killed them both had he not turned up so fast... And who was she to judge anyone after two very messy, violent killings of her own?

Ed smiled hopefully as he stiffly held out his arms to her.

“Um...Got a... hug for your old man?” he asked cautiously.

Polly looked back at him, hesitating. She really didn't know how to respond to that question...

Much later, the bodies were gone from the grounds of the house. The car was gone, too – Victor had laughed as he said it would be going somewhere much deeper than a fishing lake. Ed had stayed until sundown, they had talked, and now he had gone home to wait for Lee and the kids after making his phone calls to say the situation was over.

_But it wasn't quite over._

Oswald had plans now, plans involving reclaiming his role in the underworld. Ed would have a part to play too – but neither would be king. These days as Oswald had said before, the gang leaders were on an equal footing. This would be more about claiming a place at the table once more, where he belonged. And she didn't feel so uneasy about it now. Victor had called at the house to clean up the mess and take the bodies away. He still called Oswald _Boss_. Oswald still had power in this town, a power that had been sleeping after the shooting but now he was recovering, his strength to rule as Penguin was wide awake again...

Pearl had turned up to drive Ed home. Polly had stood on the driveway and watched as the car departed, smiling as the thought hit her that Pearl was Oswald's daughter and she was Ed's – and now she was with Oswald, it made them one big, happy family, even though theirs was a story drawn in darkness and cast forever with the shadow of death upon it.

_Now the basement was empty._

_The bodies were gone._

_The blood was cleaned up._

_There was no trace of evidence to tell of the wicked deeds this house had witnessed._

As night fell, Polly was in bed and Oswald was beside her as they lay together. Oswald was tired because he had spent longer on his feet today – a good thing, Pearl had said, as she had noticed he was walking a little better these days. Polly's thoughts were still on Pearl as she put her arm around Oswald and looked into his eyes.

“Maybe you should tell her,” she said to him, “Tell Pearl that you're her father. I wasn't too happy when I found out about Ed, but now I know, I'm getting used to it – and a lot makes sense that didn't before. I understand myself better, too.”

“No Polly,” Oswald said as he ran a gentle hand down her shoulder, “I can never tell Pearl the truth. That girl was conceived of a deal made...” he paused, recalling terrified Tabitha Galavan, tied up and begging him not leave her alone with Ed, Tabby who had entered this house never to leave, destined to die in the sub basement level of the Riddle House...

“It was a deal made in hell,” he concluded, “And that lovely girl, that sweet girl who dedicates her life to helping others must never know the truth! I'll never understand how I, with so much blood on my hands, and Tabby, after killing my dear mother, could have made a child as wonderful as Pearl. She knows nothing of the past and it shall never touch her. But I shall always be her Uncle Ozzie who loves her dearly.”

He smiled fondly, clearly at peace with his decision.

“And perhaps, in time, you and I shall have children together. I'm not too old! I feel like I could take on the world, Polly! I am ready to make my comeback, I'm ready to rejoin with those who rule over this city. You can be sure our future will be a good one, my dear.”

She leaned in and they shared a kiss and then as he held her closer, Oswald, exhausted from the hectic events of the day, slipped into a much needed sleep.

As the skies grew darker outside and from the window she saw stars prick an inky cover of night, Polly gave a sigh of contentment.

Life had not turned out the way she expected.

But as Father Francis had said, there was only shades of grey in a city like this one, there could be no defining line between dark and light, just beautiful, beautiful shades of grey...

As she thought on this, she remembered how she had parted with Ed before Pearl had drove him home. Ed had tried again, as she stood there cleaned up with no trace of blood on her, just as he bore no trace of blood on him from any of his many dark deeds, as he held out his arms to her again and said, _Do you have a hug for your old man?_

Polly had paused for a moment, and then she had smiled and nodded and walked into his embrace, and then she had wanted him to hold on for a very long time.

_And he did._

_And so did she._

Polly was still smiling at the thought of it as she rested beside Oswald with her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

_It would be okay._

_Oswald would soon reclaim his place of power in the underworld, and so would Ed. And she and Oswald would go on to have a great life together. They would raise their kids here in the Riddle House._

_Her father's house._

_And if anyone tried to come between her and Oswald, if anyone threatened him, she knew what to do._

That thought was settling nicely on her mind as she slipped into a peaceful easy sleep beside him:

_Yes, she knew what to do if anyone posed a threat to Oswald._

_She knew what to do, just like Ed did._

_It was in her blood..._

End.


End file.
